Justine Henin completed a perfect Australian Open preparation with a gallant victory over Svetlana Kuznetsova in the final of the Sydney International.

In the first tour WTA Tour final featuring the world's top two players since February 2006, Henin prevailed 4-6 6-2 6-4 in a seesawing two-and-a-quarter-hour encounter to confirm her status as a deserved Open favourite.

The iron-willed world No.1 was forced to recover from 3-0 down in the deciding set to stretch her long winning streak to 28 matches.

Utterly dominant since capturing her third successive French Open crown seven months ago, Henin's lone defeat in her last 44 matches was a shock semi-final loss to Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli at Wimbledon back in July.

Her 16th success from 18 meetings with Kuznetsova gave the 25-year-old Belgian her third title in Sydney, and 40th of her career, and boosted her prize money earnings to almost $US20 million.

The seven-times grand slam champion exhibited all her trademark fighting qualities to deny Kuznetsova, who broke Henin in the fourth and 10th games to take the opening set.

Henin upped the ante in the second set, breaking Kuznetsova in the first and seventh games, mixing some desperate scrambling and brilliant shot-making to give an enthralled Sydney crowd the third set it craved.

And despite falling behind 3-0 - largely due to coughing up an uncharacteristic nine double-faults for the match - Henin was not be denied in a tension-filled decider in which both players faced break points in virtually every game.

Henin dug deep to break Kuznetsova to love in the fifth game before levelling at 3-3 and then breaking the second seed again in the ninth game to seize control.

Henin completed the comeback win when Kuznetsova flayed a forehand long on the Belgian's first match point.

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