Caroline Wozniacki made an emphatic statement with a 6-2, 6-0 thrashing of Elina Svitolina in their WTA Finals opener on Monday but the Danish former world No1 insisted revenge was not her motivation against a player she had never previously beaten.

Wozniacki is making her fifth appearance at the year-ending eight-player event and her experience of both the venue and tournament enabled her to breeze past her Ukrainian opponent, who appeared frozen by stage fright on her debut.

“I think every match here is a special win because you play against the top players in the world, so obviously it makes it special to win,” Wozniacki said after her 58-minute win against a woman who had beaten her in two finals this season. “It doesn’t really matter if it’s Elina or someone else. I’m just happy to have won.”

Wozniacki stressed that the Singapore Indoor Stadium hard court had many nuances and to be successful, a player needed to be patient and know exactly when to put their foot on the accelerator.

“I think this court rewards being able to go from offence to defence, and I think it rewards the player that has good hands, in particular. To play consistently on this court, you need to be able to run a lot of balls down and wait for your opportunity to really hit through the court. So I just tried to do that today.”

For Svitolina it was a chastening experience against an inspired opponent, with the world No4 admitting she struggled on the surface and felt powerless as Wozniacki reeled off 10 successive games to surge to a comfortable victory.

“I prefer a faster court and this court is very slow. I completely lost my rhythm after a couple of games and was all over the place. I just felt very, very bad on court today,” said Svitolina, who has won five tournaments in 2017.

“I was just not feeling anything today. Days like this happen and I was trying to fight, to find the way, but nothing was working. I want to play good here. I want to be at my best but unfortunately today I was not. It was a terrible day for me.”

Simona Halep had backing from the stands as she eased past Caroline Garcia. Photograph: Yan Lerval/SIPA/Rex/Shutterstock

The world No1, Simona Halep, made a dominant start to her campaign in Singapore by easing past Caroline Garcia 6-2, 6-4 two weeks after the world No8 beat her in the China Open final. The Romanian’s revenge, in her first tournament as world No1, ended the French player’s 11-match winning streak in straight sets.

“I feel great that the first tournament where I’m No1, I won my first match,” Halep told the WTA’s offical website.

“I’m in a place that I have never been, with the happiness, also with my inside feelings about everything that happened this year. I think [2017] was my best year so far. After so many difficult moments I was able to come back stronger. It’s really nice and for sure I will never forget.”

Halep and Wozniacki are the early favourites to progress from the four-player Red group to the semi-finals. In the White group the Wimbledon champion, Garbiñe Muguruza, defeated the French Open winner, Jelena Ostapenko, 6-3, 6-4 on Sunday, and Karolina Pliskova beat Venus Williams 6-2, 6-2.