Australian number two Jarmila Groth claimed a major boost ahead of her home open with a 6-4 6-3 victory over American Bethanie Mattek-Sands to win the Hobart International title on Saturday.

Blustery conditions made serving a lottery but Slovakia-born Groth, who beat Australia's number one Sam Stosur on her way to the last eight in Brisbane last week, battled her way through to her second career title in 73 minutes.

I'm happy with the way I'm playing, but today wasn't as pretty as I hoped for, Groth said.

There were a couple of times when the wind came down so you could play proper tennis but most of the time it was just try to run and try to fight as much as possible.

Groth has never been past the first round in five attempts at Melbourne Park and faces 21st seed Belgian Yanina Wickmayer in her opener this year.

She did, however, reach the fourth round at Roland Garros and Wimbledon last year in her first full season as an Australian citizen before claiming her maiden tour title in Guangzhou.

I still have a couple days hopefully to prepare in Melbourne so I will leave in the morning, practice and I'll try to do what I did this week, said Groth, who married Australian player Sam Groth in February 2009 and was naturalized later that year.

Hopefully it's going to be enough again.

Australia