Astra misses family but she soldiers on

Since Astra Sharma picked up tennis at the age of five, her parents Devdutt Sharma and Susan Tan have been her biggest supporters through the highs and lows of professional sport.

Her mother even spent a month in 2019 accompanying her across Asia for a series of tournaments. So there was naturally some disappointment when the 25-year-old Australian, who was born in Singapore, could not share one of her proudest moments with her family.

Neither Singaporean parent was present on Sunday when their daughter claimed her first WTA singles title by beating world No. 27 Ons Jabeur in the MUSC Health Women's Open final in Charleston, South Carolina.

In a virtual media round table yesterday, Astra said: "It's been very tough. My parents have been always very supportive of my tennis, involved in a hands-off way where it was more of a dialogue instead of them coaching me.

"They watched me growing up, so they can read my emotions.

"They might not know specific tennis terms for something, but they'll be able to explain and be like, 'you didn't look like you're doing this, this and this'. So it was always really nice to have some sort of really close feedback and input.

"I do miss that a lot with Covid-19 being such a big challenge."

She last saw her Perth-based parents in person at February's Australian Open and keeps in touch regularly by calling them after her matches.

Despite a poor start to the season - all her losses in her first six events have come after she claimed the first set - the recent breakthrough has offered Astra reassurance she is on the right track.

"It was tough because I couldn't quite get over the final hump and I was always there (within) touching distance.

"But what it really meant for me in this tournament was to have back-to-back consolidated performances," said Astra, whose world ranking shot up by 45 places to No. 120 after her milestone moment.

"I was playing at a consistently high level, able to close out matches and doing the right things over and over again, which gave me the confidence."

This victory also came on the back of a first-round exit at the Copa Colsanitas in Colombia due to a blunder by the chair umpire, who allegedly mixed up the scores of Astra and her opponent Giulia Gatto-Monticone.

That experience left Astra rattled but was also a teaching moment.

Astra, who is based in Nashville where she graduated from the city's Vanderbilt University in 2018, said: "When that happened, I had to doubt myself a little bit.

"The one lesson I maybe took from that was maybe being a bit more resilient after that incident happened.

"Maybe I should have done a better job resetting after that and letting that go.

"I didn't let it really carry over to Charleston, I thought that would never happen again pretty much and it doesn't bother me."