Ukraine's Elina Svitolina laid down her marker as a serious contender for the Australian Open when she demolished Belarusian qualifier Aliaksandra Sasnovich 6-2, 6-1 in the Brisbane International final on Saturday. Svitolina won five titles on the WTA tour last year, more than any other woman. She ended the year ranked sixth in the world, but will climb two places when the new rankings are released on Monday and will go into the year's first Grand Slam as the fourth seed.

Svitolina said she had worked hard in the offseason to improve her game and that work was now paying off. "I've started to play more consistently and there's lots of things that changed," she said. "I'm stronger physically. I have a different look to my game."

The 23-year-old had a tough path to the decider, having to overcome top-10 players Johanna Konta and Karolina Pliskova and former world number six Carla Suarez Navarro along the way. "I didn't have any expectations for this week - I was just trying to take it one match at a time," she said. "The first match was quite tough against Suarez Navarro. And I had a very tough draw.

"It was very important to use what I was working on during the offseason, and it was working. "I was playing better and better and my serve worked really good during this week."

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2018