The Czech, who eliminated former world number one and 2002 Wimbledon champion Lleyton Hewitt of Australia in the semifinals, pulverized Dent's aggressive serve and volley game for a 5-7, 6-1, 6-3 victory.

"I have five titles in the singles, and this is my sixth title, so I'm excited and very happy about it," said Novak.

"I think that we just started a little bit nervous, both players, because we made so many breaks, we were losing our service games very often, but from the second set I just started to play better, my confidence was getting a little bit higher, and in the second and third sets I was better on the court.

"I felt great during the whole week, because I'm still in the doubles final. I beat so many good players -- Paradorn Srichaphan (of Thailand) in the quarters and in the semis Lleyton Hewitt. In the final I beat Taylor Dent, so it's a great feeling," added the 26-year-old Czech.

Dent hit two double faults twice in a row at 15-40 in the first game and at a deuce in the seventh, while breaking Novak in the second and sixth games.

And it was Novak's turn to double fault at 5-6 and 15-40, which handed the first set to the American.

But Novak, who often misfired his usually accurate strokes in the first set, was a different player for the remainder of the match, never facing another break point against him afterwards.

He started to trouble Dent with low returns and lightning passing shots to break the American's serve three times to even the contest and then hit a sizzling service return winner and a couple of passes to score the only break in the fourth game of the decider.

"We played a lot of rallies from the baseline in the other matches, but today, he (Dent) was attacking the net so often. It was completely a different game," Novak said of his first set loss.

"After the first set, I didn't drop my service game and that was the key of the match, because I was a little bit better from the baseline, I was making so many passing shots. I was just better on the court."

It was Novak's first title since winning at Gstaad last year, and also the first on hard court since hie first title at Auckland in 1996.

And now Novak, 28th in the world, looks forward to be back to fifth he reached two years ago, saying: "I believe this tournament helps me to get confidence. I was playing great tennis this year but I was just missing good results."

"So I hope that everything going to be changed a little bit and I will improve my ranking again. Right now I'm close to top 20, I just think about top 10 again," added Novak, showing his winner's ceremony for the first time to her wife Katerina.

Novak, however, felt pains to his stomach muscle during the match and abandoned the doubles final with Petr Pala at 5-1 down to the American-Czech duo of Jared Palmer and Pavel Vizner.