Deborah Cheng, showing relentless determination, came back from a mauling in the first set to take the Ladies Singles Open crown and gain sweet revenge over top seed Kelly Holland in the Coral Beach Club Invitational tournament yesterday.

In a contest that lasted nearly three hours, Cheng prevailed 0-6, 6-4, 6-4.

The turning point in the match game in the ninth game of the second set. With games level at 4-4 and Holland leading 40-15, Cheng said she felt all was lost.

"I thought that was it, but I managed to fight back one game at a time, refusing to give up," she said.

Cheng remembered losing to Holland in last year's tournament in the semi-finals even though she had match point in the second set, after having won the first.

"She was just outplaying me today (yesterday) and I had to do something to get into the game so I started to play her backhand, which I thought was the weakest part of her game," added Cheng.

In the end, this move proved successful as after some two hours and 53 minutes, Cheng clinched the title when Holland pushed a forehand down the line and watched in agony when her opponent ran it down and hit a perfect two-handed backhand winner across court for the point, set and match.

Cheng admitted that she was a slow starter and always played her best tennis from behind. But she hoped that in the future she would not leave it so late to make her charge.

Holland, who thought she had another title in the bag after the first set, said her opponent "was like the energiser battery, she just kept coming back."

"No matter where I put the ball or how far I got ahead, she kept coming back," said Holland. "She was just too good today."

If there were those present who thought they had witnessed a classic in the ladies final, they were in for a treat when top seed and local favourite Michael Way came from a set down to defeat the Michael Beautyman 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 to take the Men's Open crown.

Way missed an opportunity to win the first set when he failed to take advantage of four break points in the 11th game with his serve to come.

But that wasn't to be and he then found himself down a break in the second and third sets, before pulling out all of the stops.

"When we first started I thought I would overpower him, but he was too experienced and forced me into mistake after mistake so much so that I lost complete confidence in my forehand," said Way later.

"After losing the first set and down a break in the second, I decided that I wasn't going to win. But I started to take some of the pace off my strokes, and changed mainly to my backhand, and that strategy eventually paid off."