Li Na Aces French Open

By LI XIAO

Li Na Aces French Open

By LI XIAO

SHEER BLISS: Li Na kisses the French Open cup after defeating Italy’s Francesca Schiavone in Paris on June 4

Chinese tennis player becomes the first Asian to win a Grand Slam singles title

Chinese tennis player Li Na beat defending champion Francesca Schiavone from Italy, 6-4, 7-6, on the clay court at Roland Garros, winning the 2011 French Open Tennis Tournament on June 4. She made history by becoming the first Chinese to win a grand slam singles title.

At the Australian Open earlier this year,despite losing to Belgian Kim Clijsters in three sets in the final, Li became the first Chinese woman to reach a grand slam singles fi nal.

Before the French Open, Li ranked seventh in the world. She beat Victoria Azarenka from Belarus in the quarters and moved on to defeat Maria Sharapova, 6-4,7-5, in the semis. In the fi nal, her opponent was Schiavone, a dark horse from last year’s French Open who then eliminated Li in the third round.

In this year’s tournament, Schiavone beat Marion Bartoli from France in the semis, 6-3,6-3, to meet Li.

Schiavone and Li are the oldest pair to compete in a women’s Grand Slam final since Wimbledon in 1998. But the 29-yearold Li doesn’t agree her years trouble her performance. “Age is just paper,” she said.

Thanks to her powerful and sharp-angled strokes and more direct winners, Li broke Schiavone’s third serve game in the fi rst set and the fi rst in the second set.

Schiavone came up from behind late in the second set, but Li didn’t give her any more chances and overtook, controlling the tiebreak and recording a 6-4, 7-6 (7-0) victory.

After winning Schiavone, Li fell to the ground, screaming with joy. “I felt today the dream came true. When I was young, I dreamed about becoming a grand slam champion some day,” she said after the game.

Recalling leading 6-0 in the tiebreaker in the second set, Li said she succeeded in staying calm. “I kept telling myself: Don’t do anything stupid. You need one point, and you can get it.”

“I have played professional tennis for 12 years and I am so happy my efforts have paid off,” Li said.

Li’s performance earned applause from her rival. “This year she has grown up so much, and she played really well today,”Schiavone said.

With the win, Li is now world No.4,equaling the previous Asian record set by Japan’s Kimiko Date Krumm in the early 1990s.

Road to success

Li was born on February 26, 1982, in the city of Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province. Her father had been a badminton player for the provincial team but died when Li was 14.

At the age of 9, Li switched from playing badminton to tennis and made the national team in 1997, becoming a professional tennis player two years later. In 2000, she partnered with Li Ting to win the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA)Tashkent Open women’s doubles title,becoming the fi rst tennis tournament champions from China.

She quit the WTA tour between 2002 and 2004 because of doubts about her own progress. During that time, she completed a bachelor’s degree in journalism at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan.

Gaining more confidence and knowledge, Li returned to the national team in 2004. She married Jiang Shan, also her coach and training partner, in 2006. Jiang coached her before Danish coach Michael Mortensen joined her team in May this year.

After winning the French Open title,Li expressed her gratitude to her husband,saying, “Although he is not my coach any more, I want to give many thanks to him.He always understands me and tolerates me ... Thanks for accompanying me all the time.”

Noted for her quick reflexes and fast ground strokes, Li has also won two WTA doubles titles and 16 further International Tennis Federation doubles events, entering the Wimbledon singles quarterfinals in 2006 and reaching the semifinals of the 2008 Olympic singles tournament in Beijing.

Beneficiary of reform

Apart from the history Li made on the court, the triumph she earned in Paris shows another way for Chinese athletes to achieve at top levels, in addition to the national sports system.

In December of 2008, along with three other women players, Li left the national team to take part in an experimental program for tennis players widely known as “Fly Alone.”

The deal, signed by the three players with the Tennis Management Center of the General Administration of Sport of China,allowed Li and the others to choose their own coaches and set their own competition schedules.

“We took a lot of risks with this. When we initiated the program, we didn’t know if they would succeed,” said Sun Jinfang,Director of the center, who devoted herself to developing professionalism in tennis in a country where table tennis and badminton are still the major attractions.

“For the sport of tennis, the teenage period should take place in the national system,because China is still a developing country and tennis coaching requires a lot of money.No professional athletes could come out alone without the national system’s backup,”Sun said. “Of course, when athletes come to crossroads, we let them play individually on the world stage, promoting the sport in China.”

Li agrees on Fly Alone program’s achievement. “Without the program, possibly we wouldn’t have achieved this success,”she said.

During the two years after Sun’s appointment in 2003, Chinese players benefited greatly from frequent participation in overseas tournaments and professional competitions. During this period China invested 6 million yuan ($926,000) in sending its women tennis players to compete abroad.Spending in developing men’s tennis took the total to more than $1.2 million.

The investment paid off in 2004 when Li Ting and Sun Tiantian won gold in the women’s doubles at the Sydney Olympics.At that time, Li Na, Li Ting, Sun Tiantian,Peng Shuai and several other outstanding Chinese women tennis players received a new nickname: the “Golden Flowers.”

After Yao Ming’s NBA-mania and the hysteria engendered by hurdler Liu Xiang,the Athens Olympics men’s 110-meter hurdle champion and former world record holder, it is believed Li will bring tennis fever in China.

Xinhua News Agency reported the fi nal between Li and Schiavone was watched by 116 million people in China.

Surely it will spark new interest in tennis among the Chinese, said WTA chairwoman and CEO Stacy Allaster. “Her victory will inspire an entire generation of young girls to play tennis.”

But China only has a handful of women tennis players and they have been plagued by injuries and shortage of funding. So the real blossoming of tennis in China is still a long way off.

THE CHAMP: Li Na celebrates winning the French Open semifinal in Paris on June 2