Sheffield's Alex Jewitt flew to Australia on New Year's Day full of confidence after ending his season on the 2011 Wheelchair Tennis Tour with singles and doubles victories at the Johannesburg Open in South Africa.
The Johannesburg Open was the second of back-to-back tournaments in mid-December that the British No. 4 played in South Africa and, after he'd bowed out to Japanese top seed Yoshinobu Fujimoto in the semi-finals of the ITF 3 Series Border Open in East London, Jewitt went into the Johannesburg event as second seed.
Jewitt had eased past Austria 's Wolfgang Stieg and Evans Maripa of South Africa in the first round and the quarter-finals, respectively, at the Border Open and he met the same two players in the quarter-finals and semi-finals in Johannesburg , earning equally comfortable victories.
The Beijing Paralympian went into the final against another host nation player, Sydwell Mathonsi, unbeaten in two matches against the South African No. 1, but their previous contest had been back in 2008 and Jewitt was in for a much tougher task this time.
Jewitt proved to be the more consistent player throughout the first set of the final, but after a series of service breaks in the second set, Mathonsi gained a crucial hold to go 5-4 ahead en route to levelling the match. An equally tight third and deciding set saw Jewitt have the edge at 3-2 up before Mathonsi broke to lead 4-3. However, Jewitt broke back and then held his serve for the first time in the second and third sets.
With Mathonsi serving to stay in the match, the South African No. 1 served two doubles fault before Jewitt set up match point with a return winner and an unforced error from Mathonsi gave Jewitt a 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 victory and his fourth ITF Futures title of the season.
"I wouldn't say it was my best match of the year, but it was certainly the toughest and it's a great way to end the season. I can now look forward to 2012 and trying to qualify for my second Paralympics," said Jewitt.
Jewitt also gained his third men's doubles title of the season after partnering Nigeria's Alex Adewale to a 6-0, 6-1 victory over South African duo Gift Lekhanyane and Moses Malatji in the final of that event.
Jewitt is among Britain 's top five ranked men's singles players on the Tennis Foundation's Wheelchair Tennis Performance Programme who are contesting the traditional seasonal openers in Australia this month.
This year's Australian tournaments have been upgraded, so Jewitt, who ended 2011 and begins 2012 world ranked No. 37, will start with three ITF 2 Series tournaments in Brisbane , Adelaide and Melbourne . He will then head to Sydney for the Sydney International Wheelchair Tennis Open, the first of six tournaments in 2012 to have ITF Super Series status.
With the Sydney International being among the most important wheelchair tennis events outside of the Grand Slams, there is plenty of potential for picking up world ranking points for all the players as the qualification window for the London 2012 Paralympic Games continues, before coming to an end on Sunday 20th May 2012.