Simona Halep reached her first Grand Slam final and climbed to No. 3 in the world after her run to the finals at last week’s WTA Championships at Singapore, but according to Romania’s Mediafax, Serena Williams told the rising Romanian that she’s a future No. 1 after their final.

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“Serena told me on the podium that she wants to take a picture with the future world number one and that her mother was taking the picture,” Halep said, according Irina Popescu of Romania-Insider.com. “I liked very much what she said. Maybe this will happen one day, I can’t say now if it will, I really want to get there, but as I said, the ranking is not as important for me as it is to win many matches and many titles.”

Halep handed Williams one of the worst losses of her career in round-robin play in Singapore, but the world No. 1 and 18-time Grand Slam champion left no doubt as to who was still the boss of the WTA when she drubbed Halep, 6-0, 6-3 in the final.

After the loss to Halep, Williams admitted that she was planning to dedicate a larger percentage of her practice time to curtailing the red-hot Romanian. “To be quite frankly honest, I'm looking forward to our next meeting because she is making me go home and work hard and particularly train for her,” she said.

Halep has climbed all the way from 64 in the world last May to her current top-three perch in the rankings and, at 23, many feel her maiden Grand Slam title will come sooner rather than later.

The Romanian only owns 13 career top ten wins, but her performance in Singapore, which saw her earn three victories against the top ten including her first win over a world No. 1, was the second time that Halep earned three top ten wins in a single week in 2014.

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