American James Blake captured his sixth title in 12 months when he beat Spain's Carlos Moya 6-3, 5-7, 6-1 on Saturday to win the Sydney International for the second year running.
Blake fought off a brave fightback from Moya to join Pete Sampras and Lleyton Hewitt as the only men to win the title in successive years since tennis turned professional in 1968.
Moya, runner-up in Sydney in 1997 and again in 2004 when he retired from the final with a twisted ankle, looked to be heading to a straight sets defeat when he trailed 4-0 in the second before fighting back to force a third set.
But Blake, ranked four in the world, ran the Spaniard ragged in the decider to gain an early psychological boost over Moya with the pair drawn to play each other on Tuesday in the first round of next week's Australian Open.
Blake, 27, made a flying start when he broke Moya's serve in the fourth game. The American fended off two break points on his own serve in the eighth game then wrapped up the opening set when he rifled a forehand winner down the line.
Blake, who had won his four previous matches this week without losing a set, raced into to a 4-0 lead in the second.
Moya had survived four gruelling three-set matches just to make the final and the former French Open champion was starting to show signs of weariness.
He had saved a match point in his first-round win over Australian wildcard Luke Bourgeois, five match points in his second-round victory over fellow Spaniard Fernando Verdasco then came from 5-3 down in the third set to beat Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus in the quarter-finals.
With the match slipping from his grasp, Moya threw caution to the wind, pulling back one of the breaks and winning the next three games to bring the Sydney Olympic tennis centre crowd to their feet.
He broke for a second time when Blake served for the match at 5-4 then a third time to win the set and force the decider before Blake raised his game in the third.
The third seed regained control when he broke Moya's opening service game, then broke him twice more to clinch the championship.
