Girl serenaded endlessly? (6)

I believe the answer is:

serena

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'girl serenaded endlessly?' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this definition defines the answer.

'girl serenaded endlessly?' is the wordplay.
'girl' becomes 'ser' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'endlessly?' means to look at the middle letters (the ends of the words are removed).
The middle letters of 'serenaded' are 'ena'.
'ser'+'ena'='SERENA'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for serena that I've seen before include "Woman" , "-- Williams, tennis star" .)

I've seen this clue in the Evening Standard.

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