Jordan Thompson has closed his up-and-down season on a high by claiming a second straight ATP Challenger title in Australia.
The 24-year-old third seed backed up last week’s Traralgon triumph with a 6-1 5-7 6-4 win in the Canberra International final against Spanish teen Nicola Kuhn.
Kuhn took an early lead in the deciding set before Thompson broke back and closed out the match on serve.
Thompson is expected to rise to world No.73 when the ATP rankings are released on Monday, after dropping in and out of the top 100 throughout the year.
The Sydney native will be just 10 spots shy of his career-high ranking despite disappointing main-tour results this season.
“It’s the highest I’ve been all year,” he told Tennis Australia website after securing his third Challenger title of 2018.
“I’ve had a little bit of a rough year. I only won one match on the ATP Tour so I had to go back to Challengers.
“I just had to put my head down and work hard.”
Thompson won 52 matches on the challenger circuit in 2018 – only the second player in history to reach the mark across a calendar year.
With automatic Australian Open entry now assured, he plans to take a short break before launching into pre-season training for another assault on the Australian summer.
“I’ve been going for probably two months straight now,” Thompson said.
“I’ll have a couple of weeks off and then come back and do a good pre-season.”