Britain’s Harriet Dart won the first WTA Tour singles title of her career by beating rising Austrian teenager Lilli Tagger in the Guangzhou Open final.
Dart, 30, was overcome with emotion after a 4-6 6-3 6-4 victory in a tense final.
The British number five, ranked 115th in the world, twice saw his lead in the final erased by 18-year-old Tagger.
But Dart broke a third time for 4-3 and held serve to move within a match of the title.
Dart held two championship points on 53rd-ranked Tagger’s serve in the ninth game – lobbing an inviting midcourt ball into the net in the second – but recovered to seal victory in the biggest match of his career.
She took her third championship point with a service winner, falling to the court in joy before celebrating with her team.
The gutsy victory capped a superb run for Dart, who powered through qualifying to reach her first tour-level final at the WTA 250 event.
In addition to winning the trophy, Dart will be rewarded for the best week of her career by returning to the world top 100.
This means she will enter directly into the main draw of the Australian Open when the season-opening Grand Slam takes place in January.
The hallmark of Dart’s success this week has been its resilience and ability to recover from losing positions.
Fighting against 2025 French Open junior champion Tagger was the fourth time in seven matches that she won after losing the first set.
The title is a rich reward for a superb second half of the season, during which Dart consistently struck the ball well and continued to grow in confidence.
Dart reached a career-high ranking of 70th in the world in 2024, having reached the third round of Wimbledon and the second round of the US Open, but has languished outside the top 100 for most of the past two seasons.
Working with former Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli was an important factor in Dart’s resurgence.
Dart has won 19 of her 24 hard-court matches since Wimbledon, bringing her overall record on the WTA Tour this season to 23 wins in 34 matches – the highest winning percentage of her career.
“It wasn’t fun being on the other side of the court today – you’ve had an incredible year,” Tagger, who beat seven-time major champion Venus Williams en route to the final, told Dart.
Gn sports
