Ashleigh Barty is a hot favourite to crown her stellar season on Monday night with the Newcombe Medal as Australia's outstanding tennis player of 2017.
Barty is the frontrunner among fellow nominees Daria Gavrilova, Nick Kyrgios, John Peers and Jordan Thompson after finishing the year as the country's highest-ranked player.
Incredibly, starting the season at No.271 in the world after a stint playing cricket in the women's Big League Bash, the former Wimbledon junior champion soared more than 250 spots to 17th in the rankings.
The 21-year-old captured her maiden WTA event in Kuala Lumpar, also reached finals in Birmingham and Wuhan and was rewarded with an invitation to the season-ending Elite Trophy event in Zhuhai.
Only players ranked ninth to 19 plus a wildcard qualify for the 12-player draw in China, where Barty capped her breakout season with a run to the semi-finals.
The rising star chalked up five top-10 wins, her scalps including former world No.1s Karolina Pliskova, Garbine Muguruza, Angelique Kerber, Venus Williams and reigning French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko.
Barty also made the French Open women's doubles final with Casey Dellacqua, the first Australian duo to do so in 47 years.
Gavrilova also enjoyed a great season and probably would have been fancied to win the medal had Barty not finished so strongly.
Like Barty, Gavrilova broke through to collect her first WTA title, reigning in New Haven, and was runner-up to Samantha Stosur in Strasbourg and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in Hong Kong.
The 23-year-old made the fourth round of the Australian Open for the second year running and broke Stosur's record 442-week unbroken stint as the country's top-ranked women's player after cracking the world's top 20 for the first time.
In between meltdowns and controversies, Kyrgios had an excellent season too.
He toppled Novak Djokovic twice in a month to become the first player since his Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt to beat Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in his first meetings with the tennis titans.
Kyrgios also led Australia to the Davis Cup semi-finals and made Masters Series finals in Cincinnati and Shanghai, but a failure to progress beyond the third round at a grand slam will likely cost him Australian tennis's top honour.
Peers began the year winning the Australian Open men's doubles title with Henri Kontinen and finished it by successfully defending the season-ending championship with the Finn at ATP World Tour Finals in London.
Thompson is the outsider but a worthy nominee after playing an integral part, along with Kyrgios and Peers, in helping Australia to the Davis Cup semis and conquering then-world No.1 Andy Murray at Queen's in one of the upsets of the year.
