Serena Williams suffers humiliating defeat to Simona Halep

Serena Williams (©GettyImages).

18-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams was humbled by Simona Halep on Wednesday night, as she succumbed to a 6-0 6-2 humiliation to the Romanian on Singapore's purple indoor hard court.

Williams now sits second in Group A of the WTA Championships, and is pushed for her place in the semi-finals as Anna Ivanovic secured a crucial victory over Eugene Bouchard.

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The defeat was Williams' biggest loss since 1998, when she lost 6-1 6-1 to Joannette Kruger in the quarter-finals at Oklahoma City.

Williams, by her own admission, was absolutely horrendous on the night. The world number one claims she was not 100% going into the match, but took nothing away from the performance of her opponent.

“I’m definitely not 100% okay. I’m just here playing, but I’m not nowhere near 100%,” she told reporters.

“That has nothing to do with today’s match. I think Simona played really well and the best match of her career. To be quite frankly honest, I’m looking forward to our next meeting because she is making me going to go home and work hard and particularly train for her.”

65-minute disappointment

Williams was on and off the court in a mere 65 minutes, and was extremely critical of her game in the post-match interview.

“Yeah, my forehand was off today again. I guess it went on an early vacation,” the American added. “Lord knows my serve was as well. My serve, I don’t even know.

"My serve was at best in the 10 and under division in juniors. It was actually embarrassing I think describes the way I played. Yeah, very embarrassing.“

“I’m obviously frustrated and I wanted to do better. I wanted to win more than two games. I was trying for three. At one point I was like, If I can just get three games. But that didn’t work out for me. But it’s okay. You know, things are going and I’m still going to come back and I’m going to be better.”

Williams takes on Bouchard later this week as she hopes to bounce back from the disappointment of last night with a semi-final spot hanging in the balance.

Bouchard is still looking for her first win of the championships, and the Canadian will be hoping she can beat her rival and get back to winning ways.