An emotional Alize Cornet rallied to beat world no.5 Agnieszka Radwanska 6-4 2-6 7-5 at the Hopman Cup yesterday, the Frenchwoman spurred by her determination to win for the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris.

Wednesday’s killing of 12 people at the offices of the French satirical magazine has triggered a global outpouring of shock and grief and the world number 18 arrived at the Perth Arena court with the message “Je suis Charlie” (I am Charlie) taped to her bag.

“I learned about it during (Hopman Cup team-mate) Benoit Paire’s singles match two days ago. I was horrified. I was so shocked and very emotional about it,” Cornet said after what she described as one of her best ever wins.

“These people that they killed, it is kind of the patrimony of France. I will need some time to be over it, because right now it touches me.”

After dropping six games in a row, Cornet displayed amazing resilience to stage a comeback in the third set and went on to clinch the see-saw battle in two hours and 41 minutes, drawing inspiration from the message on her bag.

“Each time I was going to my chair at the changeover, I was seeing the message and it was coming to my mind,” the 24-year-old said.

“I was thinking, ‘You are here, you have the chance to do what you like and play in front of this amazing crowd, so just have fun and give everything and try to play for them, try to win for them’.”

Her gritty display, however, could not stop Poland from booking a place in today’s final of the round robin mixed team event against the United States.

Australian Open

• The prize money for this year’s Australian Open has been hiked to a record A$40m ($32.57m) to ensure players are not hit by a weaker Australian currency, organisers of the year’s first grand slam said yesterday.

The Aussie dollar fell 4.1% in December and reached its lowest in over five years this month against its US counterpart.

The decision means prize money has effectively doubled since A$20m was offered in 2007.