Singapore kicks off, Serena and Simona earn first points in the Red Group

The season-ending WTA tournament in Singapore has started and our players are excited.

Or are they? 🙂

Anyways, the elite eight is divided into two groups.

THE RED GROUP: Serena Williams, Simona Halep, Eugenie Bouchard, Ana Ivanovic

THE WHITE GROUP: Maria Sharapova, Petra Kvitova, Agnieszka Radwanska, Caroline Wozniacki

The top-seeded Williams opened the tournament, her fight for the prestigious title and a share of the attractive $6,500,000 prize money with a 6-4 6-4 victory over the seed No.7 Ivanovic. The win was not as straightforward as the score suggests. Trailing 4-1, Ivanovic clawed back to 4-4 (almost to 5-4), but Williams’ overall power game and 12 aces to Ivanovic’s zero sealed the Serb’s fate. As I read over at Women Who Serve, the two-time defending champion Williams now has a 50-4 head-to-head record against other women in her group and is actually the only player in her group to have a winning record against others in the group.

The other match that took place on Monday was a Red Group clash between two season finale debutantes, seed No.4 Simona Halep and seed No.5 Eugenie Bouchard. The dominant force here was Halep and she brushed aside the Canadian 6-2 6-3.

Tomorrow we’ll have the first round of the White Group encounters: Maria Sharapova vs. Caroline Wozniacki and Petra Kvitova vs. Agnieszka Radwanska.