Monday 23 October 2017 21:02, UK
Simona Halep and Caroline Wozniacki stormed to impressive opening victories at the WTA Finals in Singapore on Monday.
Halep, the world No 1, recorded a comprehensive 6-4 6-2 victory over the in-form Caroline Garcia, who had beaten the Romanian in the China Open final earlier this month, in 88 minutes at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in the Red Group's opening round-robin match.
Garcia, France's first representative at the season finale for 11 years, was on an 11-match winning run after securing back-to-back titles in Wuhan and Beijing to force herself into the eight-player tournament.
The world No 8, known for her powerful baseline hitting, began the match in a positive fashion bringing up two break points in Halep's opening service game of the match.
Garcia was unable to take advantage of the early opportunity and soon suffered a break of serve in the fifth game of the match only to recover the break of serve immediately.
However, Halep quickly grew in confidence and she gained a decisive break in the ninth game of the match, thanks in part to two costly double faults from the French player, and secured the opening set with a precise backhand winner.
The second set continued in favour of Halep as the Madrid Open champion in the third game of the second set before she fought off three break points on her serve to consolidate her advantage and confidently closed out the match to secure victory in her maiden match as the world No 1.
"I feel great that the first tournament where I'm No.1, I won the first match," Halep said. "It's nice and I did enjoy the time on court."
Meanwhile, Wozniacki also secured a straight-sets victory in her opening round-robin encounter by seeing off Elina Svitolina 6-2 6-0 in a mere 58 minutes.
The one-sided nature of the result was surprising bearing in mind both players entered the WTA Finals as the tour's top match-win leaders after recording consistent seasons.
Svitolina, who lead 3-0 in the head to head prior to the meeting, started well matching the Dane but lost 10 games on the spin as Wozniacki gained control with the first break of serve coming in the sixth game of the match.
The resounding win was Wozniacki's first success in Singapore and her victory was made all the easier for her ruthlessness on break point opportunities - the world No 6 converted every one of her five break points.
"I played extremely well out there, I'm just really happy to be through this first match," Wozniacki said. "I tried to stay aggressive and go for my shots - it really worked for me today."
Sky Sports will have all the action from the Erste Bank Open in Vienna and Swiss Indoors Basel before the Paris Masters.
The Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan and season-ending extravaganza World Tour Finals at London's O2 in November end another memorable year which will be covered via our website www.skysports.com/tennis with live blogs and updates as the season reaches its climax.
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