Gold star Jade Slavin achieved the best result of her career at the Austrian Open in only her second tournament for nearly 12 months.

The long legged, part time model defeated former Youth World Championship silver medallist, Aylin Akdeniz, 17-5, in the final of the +73kg weight division.

But her greatest moment came in the semi-finals knocking out Serbia’s reigning Olympic champion and former World Championship silver medallist, Milica Mandic, 7-6 on golden point.

That was sweet revenge for her exit at last month’s European Championships in Switzerland-Slavin’s first tournament of 2016 following injury and surgery.

“With each match I felt myself getting more and more confident,” explained the 23-year-old champion from Consett. “After beating Mandic my confidence was through the roof.

“Overall, it was just a nice feeling to be back in action. It makes me want to keep going and going and to get in more competitions.

“I was a bit wary of Mandic but I had beaten her before so I knew I could beat her again. That’s 2-2 in career meetings now.

“It’s just a shame I couldn’t do it at the Euros! “I was actually most happy with the final against Turkey; that was my most exciting fight.”

One of three Great Britain fighters in Innsbruck, the former Commonwealth champion from County Durham opened up with a 7-0 whitewash of Italy’s Laura Giacomini.

Max Cater, also competing for just the second time this year, reached the semi-finals of the -58kg division. But after beating Germany’s Oender Gueruez 17-3 and Liam Bette of France 15-9, Cater went down 9-4 to Russian Renat Tukhvatullin.

And it was another Russian athlete who ended the interest of Liverpool’s Josh Calland at the quarter final stage. Calland edged past Mamadou Sacko of France in the previous round before a 4-3 defeat against Sergey Kargapolov.

Results:

Male:

-58kg

Max Cater

Round 1: Beat Oender Gueruez (GER) 17-3

QF: Beat Liam Bette (FRA) 15-9

SF: Lost to Renat Tukhvatullin (RUS) 4-9

Josh Calland

Round 1: Beat Mamadou Sacko (FRA) 10-9 Golden Point

QF: Lost to Sergey Kargapolov (RUS) 3-4

Female:

+73kg

Jade Slavin

QF: Beat Laura Giacomini (ITA) 7-0

SF: Beat Milica Mandic (SRB) 6-5 Golden Point

Final: Beat Aylin Akdeniz (NLD) 17-5