Caroline Wozniacki made a winning start to the WTA Finals and gained revenge for a painful defeat on another big stage by thrashing Elina Svitolina 6-2, 6-0 in Singapore on Monday.
A beaten finalist at this event in 2010, when she lost to Kim Clijsters, Wozniacki's opening victory - the 27-year-old's first in four career meetings with Svitolina - saw her move joint top of the Red Group alongside Simona Halep, who defeated Caroline Garcia earlier in the day.
Wozniacki could have been forgiven for feeling somewhat apprehensive going into the match, having been on the wrong end of a bagel set as she lost the Rogers Cup final to Svitolina 6-4, 6-0 in Toronto in August.
That unevenness was not in evidence early in this match, as the opening set stayed on serve until the sixth game, when Svitolina surprisingly committed a double fault and then allowed a forehand to drift wide to give up the first break of the match.
Wozniacki held serve with a powerful ace out wide to the backhand wing and in the subsequent game Svitolina sent a rally-ball forehand long to suffer a double break and hand her opponent the set.
The dominant Dane had to save break point for the first time in the opening game of the second set, which she did by stepping into the court, pushing Svitolina wide and firing a fierce, punched backhand past the beleaguered Ukrainian.
An increasingly disconsolate Svitolina made a succession of errors in attempting to raise her level to match the nerveless Wozniacki, failing to hold serve throughout a second set that raced away from her in just 26 minutes.
"I played extremely well out there, I'm really happy to be through this first match," Wozniacki said in an on-court interview.
"I tried to be aggressive and go for my shots, it really worked well for me."
Asked if she had been concentrating on improving her serve, she replied: "Yeah definitely, I've worked on it for 20 years now. I'm glad it's finally starting to click. I'm going to take it for as long as it's going."
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