Top seed Tim Henman of Britain has won his warm-up to the first major tennis tournament of the year with a three-set victory over unseeded Australian Mark Philippoussis in the finals of the Australian hard-court championships.
Ranked ninth in the world, Henman dropped a second set tiebreaker, 8-6, after taking the opener, 6-4, in Sunday's final in Adelaide. But Henman prevailed and won the deciding set, 6-3, giving him his ninth career title and a boost of confidence heading into the Australian Open.
The grand-slam event gets under way on January 14 in Melbourne.