Greg Garber, Senior Writer 9y

Expect a more focused Serena in final

Tennis

After the first set in Singapore on Saturday, in which she won all of two games, Serena Williams and her exceedingly strange season appeared to be done.

She rallied (as you knew she would), but when Caroline Wozniacki found herself serving for the match at 5-4 in the third set you got the powerful idea it was finally over. Certainly, when Wozniacki ran off to a 4-1 lead in that ultimate tiebreaker, it was time for Serena to hit the reset button and contemplate 2015.

But, of course, it wasn't.

Somehow, she got a ball off the net cord to fall the right way on the sixth point of the tiebreaker; if it had dropped on her side, she would have trailed 5-1. Serena went on to win five straight points and, eventually, the sometimes spectacular match 2-6, 6-3, 7-6 (6) to advance to Sunday's championship match at the BNP Paribas WTA Finals.

There she'll meet the ascendant Simona Halep, who bludgeoned Agnieszka Radwanska 6-2, 6-2 in the other semifinal.

You can catch the match at 7 a.m. ET on ESPN2 and WatchESPN.

Halep stunned Williams 6-0, 6-2 on Wednesday -- Serena's worst beating in more than 16 years -- but the tennis community knows that it's far easier to beat Serena early in a tournament than at the end.

"A new day, a new match," Halep said in her on-court interview of the prospect of facing the No. 1-ranked player in the world. "We're going to see what happens.

"I know that she will be more focused tomorrow."

Said Serena, "My goal is to win three games. That'll be my first goal. I'm going to go from there. Hopefully I can hold serve. That would be good. Most of all, I hope to break once.

"So I'm starting out with low goals. Then I'm going to go from there. She played really, really well. I'm just going to do the best that I can do and see what happens."

The ledger says Wozniacki has now lost to Serena 10 times in 11 tries, but this one was a spirited contest. Wozniacki won the first set in a snappy 26 minutes, with Serena (14 unforced errors) missing badly. Williams tightened her game up, winning 16 of 18 service points and broke Wozniacki twice.

The third set went 76 minutes -- longer than the first two sets combined. Wozniacki erased the first match point against her with a nice volley into the open court, but Serena, who hammered a dozen aces, was stronger in the end.

"I just kept thinking, 'Well, if I lose I get to go home, but if I win I get to stay in front of this amazing crowd,' Serena said afterward. "I heard so many fans out here today, and after I lost the first set you guys got so behind me, and that's the only reason I pulled through, so thank you so much, Singapore."

Wozniacki, who came into the semifinals with the only perfect record (3-0), actually won more points than Serena, 91-87. The Singapore court, which has been playing slow all week long, helped her keep more balls in play than at the US Open final. Now, she's headed back to New York to run in next week's marathon.

Looking back, Wozniacki might say her highlight of the week was attending a Mariah Carey concert Friday night. The 24-year-old Dane sent out Instagram snaps with the singer -- and so did good friend Serena.

This is the first time Halep's qualified for the WTA's year-end event. By contrast, Williams is into her seventh final. She won the event the past three times she played (2009, 2012 and 2013), as well as 2001 -- when Halep had just turned 10 years old in Romania. "It was the perfect match for me," said Halep, whose ranking will rise to No. 3. "I'm very excited to be in the final. I didn't expect this."

For the 33-year-old Serena, it's a matter of dialing down.

"Sometimes when you have a match point your heart rate goes up," she said. "So you have to take a deep breath and then really calm yourself down. I'm always able to calm down."

She failed to reach even the quarterfinals of the season's first three Grand Slams, but Serena managed to win the US Open. After a spotty fall in Asia, she is poised to finish 2014 precisely the same way she did a year ago: ranked No. 1 and holding the year-end trophy.

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