Having lost the first game of the match, Konta won 12 games in a row

When the draw for the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic was made last Saturday, Johanna Konta was well within her rights to curse her luck. A first-round match against Serena Williams, the 23-times grand-slam champion, was not the ideal way to ease in to the American hard-court swing.

No one could have foreseen what was to play out in the end on Tuesday evening, a stunned silence enveloping the main stadium court at the San Jose State University as the British No 1 inflicted the worst defeat of Williams’s long and glorious career: 6-1, 6-0 in 51 minutes.

This was the first time since Williams, 36, turned professional in 1995 that she has failed to win more than one game in a match. She was a