The inaugural Year-End-Championships in Singapore will kick off with a blockbuster opening match between the number one seed, Serena Williams and the number seven seed, Ana Ivanovic. This match will begin at 7.30pm local time, which should be 12.30pm in the UK. Both players are coming into this first match after a walkover in their last match. Ivanovic won a match in Linz before pulling out of the tourmament prior to her second round match with a persistent left hip injury. Williams pulled out of Beijing before her quarter-final match with a knee injury, which sounded worrying.
Serena and Ana have already played each other four times in 2014. Ivanovic won their first encounter in Australia, coming from a set down to score a huge 4-6 6-3 6-3 victory; since then Serena has won three out of three. Ivanovic won a set in Rome (6-1 3-6 6-1) and Stanford (2-6 6-3 7-5), but didn’t look at the races in their most recent encounter in the final of Cincy where Serena delivered one of her best performances of the entire year to win that match, 6-4 6-1.
Serena has begun to take control of this H2H based on 2014 matches, but their match in Stanford this Summer was extremely close. Ivanovic has had great success in their match-ups at returning the Serena serve, which she will need to do well again to stand a chance. It’s difficult to get into the dynamics of this match-up because so much depends on their health and recovery from injuries. There hasn’t been a great deal of information regarding Serena’s injury, but the fact that she has turned up in Singapore is probably enough to suggest she’s going to be OK. For that reason, i’ll take Serena to win the opening match of Singapore.
Prediction: S.Williams d. Ivanovic in 2 sets (1 tight, 1 easy)
In the pre-tournament poll, Serena currently leads the way with 27% of the votes, followed by Sharapova (17%), Kvitova (17%), Ivanovic (15%), Wozniacki (9%), Bouchard (6%), Radwanska (5%) and Halep (4%). If you haven’t voted, you can do so in my pre-tournament preview HERE.
Moo's Tennis Blog 
It all comes down to injuries.
If Serena isn’t 100% then it’s going to three sets and I think Ana could win it. I have this sneaky suspicion that Serena is going to be all guns blazing and take it in straight sets. Regardless I think it’ll be one of the tournament highlights.
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I fervently hope Serena’s completely healed and Wins!
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I like them both but I go with Serena. She’s unbelievably hungry.
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As it is always when Serena plays, it all depends on her. Good performance can bring her an easy win or she can lose if Ana will use weak moments of Serena’s game
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i thing simona halep is too god
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