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Winning start for Queen Serena

SINGAPORE — In front of nearly 8,000 tennis fans at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, among them a group holding signs that said “Queen Serena”, world No 1 Serena Williams proved why she is still the queen of women’s tennis.

Williams amazed fans with her flexibility en route to her 16th consecutive win at the WTA Finals. WEE TECK HIAN

Williams amazed fans with her flexibility en route to her 16th consecutive win at the WTA Finals. WEE TECK HIAN

SINGAPORE — In front of nearly 8,000 tennis fans at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, among them a group holding signs that said “Queen Serena”, world No 1 Serena Williams proved why she is still the queen of women’s tennis.

Her 6-4, 6-4 triumph over world No 7 Ana Ivanovic in 78 minutes gave the first edition of the BNP Paribas WTA Finals in Singapore the opening it deserved.

While support for both players was evenly split in the middle, defending champion Williams played with the gutsiness fans have come to expect from her, hanging tough despite a minor blip in the middle of the opening set when she let slip a 4-1 lead.

Williams showed no sign of injury that had threatened her participation here, and even showed her flexibility as she amazed the crowd with her multiple splits, en route to notching up her 16th consecutive win at the season-ending tournament.

“I felt pretty good. I felt like I really don’t have anything to lose at this point,” said the 33-year-old American. “I just started practising on Monday, so I just had to do the best that I can, and I really can’t do any more, so that was just all that I could do. I felt my knee a little bit but compared to what it was in Beijing, it just feels so much better, which is great. So by the end of the week, hopefully it’ll just keep getting better and better.”

That is bad news for her opponents who might have fancied their chances of dethroning the queen. Williams, the US Open champion, served 12 aces although only 50 per cent of her first serves were in. Her aggressive second serves, she felt, were key to her winning the match.

“I was pleased with my serve. Ana is a very aggressive returner and I went really hard on my second serve, but I didn’t push it,” she said.

“Playing against her, she’ll hit a winner so I had to go for a lot. I hit a few double faults in the first few games but after that I was pretty clean even though I was hitting pretty aggressive second serves.”

Ivanovic was left pondering what could have been as she had her chances for victory. But that was put paid by 23 unforced errors as she missed many game-changing opportunities, most notably at break point up at 4-4 in the first set.

“That was a huge point, but it was actually quite a hard volley,” said the Serb. “The ball was dropping fast, I didn’t come in fast enough. I felt I created a lot of opportunities.”

Ivanovic, a former world No 1, began to show nerves on her serve as her ball-toss strayed and double faults came at the most untimely moments. “I was rushing a little bit,” she reflected. “She was putting a lot of pressure on my serve. She served really well today and created more pressure on my service game.”

In the other match played last night in the Red Group, Romanian Simona Halep triumphed in the battle of WTA Finals debutants, despatched popular 20-year-old Canadian Eugenie Bouchard 6-2, 6-3 in 68 minutes.

The tournament continues today with two matches from the White Group, with Maria Sharapova meeting Caroline Wozniacki and Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova taking on Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska.

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