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SAN JOSE — Serena Williams’ visit to the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic lasted just 51 minutes on Tuesday night.
Acclaimed as the greatest women’s tennis player in history, Williams suffered the most lopsided defeat of her 20-year professional career, losing 6-1, 6-0 to Johanna Konta of Great Britain.
Williams won the first game, then didn’t get another. Konta, 27, broke her serve six straight times to end the match.
“I know i can play a zillion times better,” said Williams, winner of 23 Grand Slam titles. “I have so many things on my mind, I don’t have time to be shocked by a loss when I’m clearly not at my best.”
Just 10 months removed from giving birth to her first child but only weeks after reaching the finals at Wimbledon, Williams struggled with her serve and could not match Konta’s aggressive play.
Never before in 928 career matches had Williams won just a single game.
Konta, whose title at this event two years ago at Stanford, is among her three career WTA tournament crowns, called it a “humbling experience” to be on the court with Williams.
“She obviously wasn’t playing her best,” Konta said. “I really just tried to play the match on my terms. The thing with Serena, besides behind the greatest player of all-time, is her competitiveness. I just had to keep going.”
The capacity crowd at San Jose State’s new tennis facility clearly was pulling for Williams, but Konta was in charge almost from the start.
“I think she played well in the second set,” Williams said. “I wasn’t sharp at all in the first set, then she got confident, and she clearly ran away with it.”
Williams waved to the cheering crowd as she exited the court, and afterward tried to find small victories in the defeat.
“I was fighting out there. I was moving better … just take the positives out of it,” she said.
Williams won this event in 2011, ’12 and ’14, but this is just her fifth tournament since giving birth to daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. last September.
Konta, who represented Great Britain at the 2016 London Olympics, had faced Williams just once previously, losing 6-2, 6-3 in the quarterfinals of the 2017 Australian Open.
She declined to label this a career-changing victory.
“I don’t believe in magic moments,” Konta said. “All this match has given me is an opportunity to play another match here.” Konta will face Sofia Kenin on Wednesday afternoon.
She climbed as high as No. 4 in the WTA rankings a year ago, hasn’t played as well this season. She lost in the first round at the French Open and the second round at both the Australian Open and Wimbledon, and entered this week ranked No. 48.
But she was a decisive winner on Tuesday night. Konta delivered six aces to three for Williams. Her first serve was most accurate (64 percent to 39) as Williams suffered seven double-faults, including two in the final game.
Williams admitted a new 25-second serve clock, implemented for the first time in a women’s event by the U.S. Tennis Association for this tournament, bothered her some. She said that shouldn’t have been the case because she naturally plays at a fast pace.
“It’s definitely something I’m going to have to get used to,” Williams said. “I don’t really like it. I hate it. I just have to not think about it. My game is a lot faster than the serve clock.”
Konta beat Venus Williams in the finals of the 2016 Bank of the West Classic at Stanford. They are in opposite brackets here, so the two could not meet again until Sunday’s final.
Wednesday’s feature match during the evening session pits top-seeded Garbine Muguruza, the 2017 Wimbledon champion, against Victoria Azarenka, a former two-time U.S. Open champ.
