Simona Halep and Serena Williams get a sequel for WTA Finals title

Simona Halep of Romania, who defeated Serena Williams in round-robin play at the WTA Finals, will have to repeat the feat. She faces Williams for the title on Sundayi n Singapore. Julian Finney / GettShow more

SINGAPORE // If beating Serena Williams is considered the toughest challenge in women’s tennis, then spare a thought for Romania’s Simona Halep.

To win the WTA Finals, Halep faces the daunting prospect of defeating Williams twice in less than a week.

The Romanian pulled off a stunning 6-0, 6-2 win over Williams in the group stage of this week’s elite season-ending event. Now she has to do it again to take the title after the pair were pitted against each other in Sunday’s final at Singapore’s National Indoor Stadium.

“I feel that I have nothing to lose in this final,” said Halep, who booked her place in the title match with a clinical 6-2, 6-2 win over Agnieszka Radwanska in the semi-finals.

“Before coming here, I didn’t expect this result, and now I have no pressure, nothing to lose.

“I’m playing against the No 1 in the world again. I did this week, but it’s another day, so we’ll see what is going to happen there.”

Williams sealed her place in the final after a 2-6, 6-3, 7-6 victory against Caroline Wozniacki, although she was fortunate just to make the semis.

After losing to Halep in the round-robin phase, her progress was reliant on other results going her way and, ironically, it was Halep that saved her.

Had the 23-year-old Romanian lost her final group match to Ana Ivanovic in straight sets, Williams would not have qualified for the semis.

Halep did lose the first set to Ivanovic but rallied to win the second. She lost the match but, by pushing it to three sets, she allowed Williams to advance.

Asked whether she considered her chances of winning the tournament might have been improved if Williams was knocked out, Halep said: “No, no. I just wanted to play my game yesterday against Ivanovic. I didn’t think that I can eliminate ­Serena.”

Halep, one of the most improved players in women’s tennis, has not given up hope of beating Williams again and was in great form against Radwanska. Halep broke Radwanska’s serve five times and racked up 26 winners against the Pole, including an overhead smash to seal her lopsided victory in just 67 minutes.

Ranked 64th in the world early last year, Halep has quickly established herself as one of the game’s rising stars.

In June 2013, she won her first WTA title. Then her second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth before the end of the season. The WTA, in one of its easiest decisions, named her as the tour’s most improved player.

At the start of this year, Halep won her first premier-level event, at Qatar, then made her first grand slam tournament final, at the French Open, finishing runner-up to Russian Maria Sharapova.

But her demolition of Williams – the American’s heaviest defeat in 16 years – captured the attention and respect of everyone in the tennis world.

Williams was not proud of losing her cool after she fought back from a set down to reach the final. Williams’ racquet bore the brunt of her frustrations during the first set against Wozniacki, when she repeatedly battered it on the floor to leave it a mangled wreck.

It brought to mind some of the best remembered incidents of racquet destruction including Fernando Gonzalez, Andy Roddick and Marcos Baghdatis at the 2012 Australian Open.

But the fit of pique may have made the difference as Williams took the second set and later the match on a third-set tiebreaker.

“I don’t know how many times I hit it, but boy, that racquet will never do me wrong again, I tell you,” the defending champion said. “It was definitely legendary. I kind of lost my cool a little bit. I thought, well, at least you know I’m passionate. I give 200 per cent.

“When I play, doesn’t matter how I feel, I’m going to give everything I have for every shot and every point.”

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