Amanda McDowell started realizing what she had accomplished when her cellphone kept ringing Monday evening.

People she hadn't talked to in four or five years suddenly had to get back in touch to congratulate her on winning the first individual NCAA tennis championship in Georgia Tech history.

AP (ENLARGE)

Tech's Amanda McDowell celebrates her straight-set victory over 2005 champion Zuzana Zemenova of Baylor in the NCAA's singles title match in Tulsa, Okla.

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"I'm so excited right now. I don't know when I'm going to come down from all this," McDowell said after her 6-2, 6-3 victory over 2005 champion Zuzana Zemenova of Baylor in the title match in Tulsa, Okla. "It makes me feel so special that all these people were watching me and following me."

McDowell, a sophomore from Marist, almost got knocked off in the tournament's opening round, when she dropped the first set 6-1 and had to fend off four match points in the second set against Vanderbilt's Amanda Taylor. The way McDowell fought back and survived that match showed an ability to handle pressure that surfaced again and again in the tournament.

"She saw death. She almost experienced it," Tech coach Bryan Shelton said. "A player that's experienced that, tends to play freer and looser.

"She had something inside her that said, 'Don't give up. Six days later she was holding up the trophy.' "

McDowell joins a list of NCAA singles champions that includes John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith and Pancho Segura on the men's side and Laura Granville and Lisa Raymond on the women's.

That's impressive company for a woman who less than two years ago was fighting for a spot in Tech's lineup, wound up at No. 4 singles for the 2007 NCAA team champions and played most of this season at No. 2 singles, behind Kristi Miller.

McDowell just kept getting better. She ended her freshman season ranked No. 90 in the nation. She entered this NCAA tournament ranked seventh.

And she finished her season on a 15-match winning streak that lasted more than two months.

Monday, her parents, two former coaches, her sister and her sister's boyfriend were there to see the biggest individual victory of her career. Others back home in Atlanta watched over an Internet video feed.

Zemenova broke McDowell's serve in the first game of the match, but McDowell seized control by winning the next five games.

"I tried to use the emotions I remembered from last year [in the team championship match]," McDowell said. "I knew I'd done it before."

"She handles the nerves better than anybody I've ever coached," Shelton said.

McDowell scored her fourth consecutive straight-set victory and her school-record 45th victory this season, against eight defeats. She plans to take a week or two off before getting back to work on her game and said she'll be back at Tech for her junior season.

"I'd love to see our team get another team championship," she said, adding that in addition to defending her singles title she would like to make a run in doubles, too.

McDowell has shown big-time talent before. She ranked fourth nationally in the under-16 age group.

"I always thought with the right coach and the right team I could do some big things in college tennis," McDowell said.

Just two years into her career, she already has.