The 22-year-old finished her season on a high with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Wang Qiang but the week didn't get off to the best start.

The win makes it her third overall singles title and second for 2018 following her outstanding run at Nottingham in June.

Barty began her week by losing five of the first six games in her round-robin opener and fell to a defeat against Aryna Sabalenka.

She was able to bounce back though with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Caroline Garcia before defeating defending champion Julia Goerges 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in the semifinals.

Barty took a 4-0 lead after winning 16 of the opening 22 points in the match but Wang, who was playing her fourth WTA final in as many months didn't back down, winning three consecutive games.

However, she was unable to take a point and level it at 4-4.

"I know that whenever I have played Q in the past, it's always been an extremely tough match," Barty told WTA Media.

"There's a tendency to have long games, whether they're return or service games. It's kind of grinding out those games," she said.

The second set was more evenly contested with just one break of serve in 10 games with a flurry of errors from Wang leading to the sole break in the seventh game.

The WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai was the last event of the WTA Tour for 2018 with the season seeing Barty finish with a new career high ranking of No.15.

However, Barty was not aware of her new ranking.

"That's a really neat way to finish off the year," she said. 

"It's been a truly phenomenal year. My goal is to stay top 20 and try and consolidate as best I can. We've been able to do that and come away with a couple of titles, as well, and still being very successful in doubles.

"It's been a really, really amazing year. Now we get to go home to celebrate that and then prepare for bigger and better things in 2019, starting with the Australian summer," Barty said.