South Africa's Neville Godwin has won his first ATP crown after beating Britain's Martin Lee in the Hall of Fame Championships.

Lee's progression to the final included beating local favourite James Blake in the semis but he was unable to contend with the power of Godwin on Sunday.

Godwin's only other final appearance was a loss to India's Leander Paes in 1998 at Newport, the only ATP grass-court tournament in the United States.

He dominated the early exchanges and ran away with the first set, dropping just the single game.

Helped by formidable ground-strokes and consistent volleying, Godwin's serve was not broken until the eighth game of the second set.

Lee rallied back in the final games - he recovered from 5-2 down to 5-4, but it was too little, too late.

"In the first set I thought Martin might be a little nervous coming out because he was in his first final," Godwin afterwards.

"Luckily, I was in one before."

"I felt like it was a good match-up for me. I looked at the draw to see who Martin had played before, and no one really played like me."

The Briton acknowledged he was nervous playing in his first final.

"He didn't really give me a chance," Lee said.

"I started slowly and it didn't help that he started well."

In the doubles, Bob and Mike Bryan from America beat Brazilian Andre Sa and Glenn Weiner, from the United States, 6-3 7-5.