The 19-year-old, who hails from Yallourn, became the youngest ever winner of the Southern Hemisphere’s most lucrative tournament in 2011 when she triumphed over former under-25 world champion Sam Shannahan, and whilst she was unable to follow up with a back-to-back repeat last year; dropping the final to Jackaroos captain Lynsey Armitage, she has made history with a gold medal performance against world number two Karen Murphy today.

Australian Open today, Clayton’s Lisa Philips has etched her name into the record books at the $136,000, becoming the first women to claim the blue-ribbon singles title twice since the event’s inception.

With a capacity crowd in attendance at the Darebin International Sports Centre looking on, the Australian Jackaroo teammates light up the greens, with Phillips finding form early in her third consecutive finals appearance, claiming the first set 9-5.

Recently crowned singles world champion Murphy was quick to launch her response however, squaring the scores on the fifth end of the second set with 3 shots, edging ahead with a full count of 4 on the seventh end, and picking up 1 on the last end as the game hung in the balance, to push it to a spellbinding tie-break.

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http://en.africatopsports.com/2013/02/15/netball-globe-news-by-rona-hunnisett/