TAYLA Brasier's strong start to the season has continued with victory in the under 16s singles at the recent Newcastle Junior Open.
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Brasier, 15, entered the tournament representing Western Regional Academy of Sport as part of the Academy Games taking place across the Hunter region.
The Bathurst player represented her home academy in style by claiming a pair of big victories followed by a gritty success in the decider.
Brasier started her tournament with a 6-2, 6-1 win and carried that momentum into another big victory.
I'd never beaten her before but I ended up winning it.
- Tayla Brasier
"The first game was a pretty easy one but in the second match I'd played someone who I'd lost to the last time I'd played them," Brasier said.
"I was a bit nervous going into it but I ended up winning that one 6-2, 6-0 so it wasn't as close as I thought it would be."
Brasier found herself in a much closer contest for the final.
Given the quality of opposition her opponent Monica Jodie Petrusevski had dispatched Brasier went into the decisive match on high alert.
"I had to play against the number three seed who had knocked out the top seed," she said.
"I'd never beaten her before but I ended up winning it 7-5, 7-5 so it was a really close and really good match.
"It was a really great feeling to win it."
Brasier was the only player outside of the Hunter or Northern Inland academies to claim a title at the event.
Brasier has been enjoying an excellent run into the 2019 season, climbing inside the Australian top 300 along the way.
In January she played out an epic final at the Newcastle Gold JT against top seed Elana Nasr and lost in a super tiebreak.
From there she won her home Bathurst Autumn Silver JT as the second seed and is currently playing for a spot in the main draw of the NSW Age tournament at Sydney Olympic Park.
There were mixed fortunes for Western Region Academy of Sports' other competitors across the Hunter during the games.
The hockey teams were in great form to claim a pair of silver medals, losing out on gold to Hunter and Sydney Metro in the boys and girls competitions respectively.
The WRAS B girls side came home in fourth during a strong display of the region's depth in hockey.
WRAS' boys basketball squad narrowly missed out on a place in the top two after going down in their semi-final by just three points.
The WRAS girls team came up just short of that mark as they were knocked out in the quarter finals.
The WRAS AFL girls joined forces with the Western Sydney Academy of Sport to come away with a fourth place finish.