Maria Sharapova won her first WTA Tour title and men's top seed Rainer Schuettler completed an efficient 7-6, 6-2 victory over Sebastien Grosjean at the Japan Open on Sunday.
Sharapova, 16, won a tense 2-6, 6-2, 7-6 battle against unseeded Hungarian Aniko Kapros.
Pumping her fist after each point, Sharapova fought back from 5-2 down in the third-set tiebreak to win five successive points in a nail-biting climax.
The Russian closed out with a well placed second serve on her third match point that Kapros failed to control after two hours and 10 minutes.
A sobbing Sharapova hugged her father Yuri, who had raced on to the court to congratulate her at the end of a stamina-sapping final.
"It feels good that I showed that in a final, at 16 years old, I can pull it out. I think it shows a good side, the side of a champion...not just the looks," said the fifth-seeded Sharapova, who has been dubbed the new Anna Kournikova.
The 1.83-metre Sharapova had squandered two match points in the 10th game, putting up a weak lob on the first and hitting a backhand long on the second.
She almost suffered a meltdown during the tiebreak but the world number 48 suddenly found an extra gear.
Grunting louder with every shot, a fired-up Sharapova surged to match point again behind a string of thumping forehands.
"I was two points away from losing the match but somehow I pulled it through. I don't know how," said the Siberian-born Sharapova, whose previous best had been to reach the semi-final in Birmingham in the run-up to this year's Wimbledon.
CONVINCING VICTORY
Schuettler won his first title in two years with a convincing victory over second-seeded Frenchman Grosjean.
The German, without a tournament win since Shanghai in 2001, took the first-set tiebreak 7-5 and broke Grosjean in the opening game of the second set.
Australian Open runner-up Schuettler secured a double break in the seventh game to go 5-2 up and wrapped up victory on his first match point with a whipped cross-court forehand.
"Being in a grand slam final has always been a dream since watching Boris Becker win Wimbledon," said Schuettler, sixth in the ATP Champions Race.
"To play in the Masters Cup is a dream too and it would be very unlucky if I am not there at the end of the year now. It was a perfect week for me."
The top eight players qualify for the prestigious Masters Cup in Houston from November 8 to 16.
Schuettler had not dropped a set during the tournament but the 27-year-old was slow to start in the final, dropping his serve in the opening game.
However, he broke back in the eighth game with a sizzling forehand down the line.
Schuettler, who had lost both his previous meetings with Grosjean, fell behind 5-3 in the first-set tiebreak but clawed his way back with some brave shot-making.
