Serena Williams beats Simona Halep to win WTA Finals trophy

Simona Halep and Serena Williams pose with their trophies in the WTA Finals

Serena dominated the final

Serena Williams added another trophy to her impressive cabinet as she demolished Simona Halep 6-3, 6-0 in the finals of the WTA Championships in Singapore. The American avenged had lost 6-0, 6-2 to the Romanian in the round-robin stage of the tournament. The 18-time Grand Slam champion started nervously saving a break point on her first service game, before being broken in her second. Halep could not capitalise on her serve and was pegged back by Williams.

The US Open Champion double-faulted at 4-2 to hand over the advantage right back. Halep’s backhand went wide as she dropped her serve for the third time in the first set. Williams hit two aces on her serve to wrap up the first set 6-3 in just 46 minutes.

There was no looking back for the American in the second set as she sped to a double break lead in no time. The crowd were chanting Simona, Simona encouraging the Romanian to show fight and take the match to a decider, but it wasn’t to be as Williams converted her second Championship point to bagel her opponent in the second set and win her fifth WTA Tour finals trophy and her third in a row.

Post match reactions

"It's just been an unbelievable week," Williams said.

"I just started training again last week because I had such a bad knee in Beijing. I can't believe I even made it to Singapore, and now I have the Billie Jean KingTrophy, so I'm just really excited."

She complimented Halep for having a good tournament. "She's making me a better player," the 18-time Grand Slam champion said.

"Congratulations to you, Serena, you are the best," Halep said.

"Congratulations for ending the year No.1 again, too. I want to thank everybody for supporting me and watching all of our matches. It was an amazing week for me, so I am happy - I cannot be sad that I lost,” she added.