Western Australia's Maddison Inglis continued a whirlwind 12 months by taking out the women's singles title at the Burnie International in a hard-fought clash with American Sachia Vickery.
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Inglis was able to overcome a slow start to secure the 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 victory in two hours and 35 minutes, which delivered her fourth singles title in the past year and it was her first at $60,000 level.
It was also amazingly her first time making the tournament's main draw after missing failing to make it through qualifying the past three years.
The 22-year-old, who became the second Australian in as many years to win the event after Belinda Woolcock's victory last year, said the victory didn't feel real.
"I feel so happy and relieved that I got the win, it was so close in the end and she was playing some really good tennis," she said.
"I came into this week not thinking about winning the tournament, maybe that was a bad thing, but I had my doubles partner in the first round and after that everything was a bonus.
"It was tough in the wind and it wasn't really going in one direction, so it was super frustrating, but I did really well to turn it around."
Neither player was able to have any success on serve in the opening four games as Inglis and Vickery dropped their first two service games as they acclimatised to the conditions.
It was Vickery who was able consolidate first and held her serve twice and broke Inglis twice more to take out the first set in 49 minutes.
It took until the second game of the second set for Inglis to finally win a game on her serve and then broke Vickery's to control the momentum. which she rode to force a deciding set.
Inglis kept the foot down at the start of the decider and opened up a 4-1 lead and she appeared in reach of the title.
But Vickery fought back and got back to level at 5-5, but couldn't maintain that level of play and Inglis held serve and broke the American to end the marathon match.
Inglis said it was really difficult to break down Vickery and that was why she was so proud of her win
"She got to everything, it hard to finish a match off when you are nervous and trying to win your first 60k.
"That is why I should take a lot of confidence out of it."
The win will help Inglis inch closer to the top 100 in the world rankings by she said she was not going to change her schedule in the next few weeks.
"I am going home, I am so excited and then onto Thailand on Thursday.
"I will play in a WTA event there and then back to Perth for two 25k events."
