Li Na (tennis)This is a Chinese name; the family name is Li.Li Na (Chinese: 李娜; pinyin: Lǐ Nà; born February 26, 1982) is a Chinese professional tennis player. As of September 2013, Li has won 7WTA and 19 ITF singles titles. Li rose to prominence after she won the2011 French Open singles title, making her the first and only Grand Slam singles champion from an Asian country. Prior to this Li had already become the first player representing an Asian country to appear in a Grand Slam singles final, a milestone she achieved at the2011 Australian Open. She was also the runner-up at the 2013 Australian Open, three times a quarter-finalistat Wimbledon and a semi-finalist at the 2013 US Open. Her career-high singles ranking is World No.3 (achieved on October 28, 2013) and is currently the World No. 3 and Chinese No. 1 (out of4 in the top-100).[1]Personal life[edit]Li Na was born on February 26, 1982, in Wuhan, Hubei, China. Her father Li Shengpeng (李盛鹏) was a professional badminton player and later worked as a sales rep for a Wuhan based company. He died from a rare cardiovascular disease when Li Na was 14.[2]At age six, Li Na started playing badminton, following her father's footsteps. Just before she turned eight, Li made the transition from badminton to tennis when she and her parents were convinced by coach Xia Xiyao of the Wuhan youth tennis club that this would be the right career move for her.[3] Li joined China's National Tennis Team in 1997. In the following year, Li, sponsored by Nike, went to John Newcombe Academy in Texas to study tennis.[4] She studied there for 10 months and returned to China. Li turned professional in 1999 at age sixteen.At the end of 2002, Li left the national tennis team to study part-time at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, where she completed her bachelor's degree in journalism in 2009. The Chinese media cited various reasons for this. Some reported that the relationship between her and her teammate, future husband Jiang Shan (姜山), was opposed by the national team's management,[5] some reported that her coach Yu Liqiao (余丽桥) was too strict anddemanding,[6]while other reports claimed that her request for a personal coach did not go through.[7] However, Li returned to the national team in 2004. Jiang Shan married Li on January 27, 2006 and became her personal coach. Li quit the national team[8] as well as the state-run sports system in 2008 under an experimental reform policy for tennis players. This change was called "Fly Alone" (单飞) by Chinese media.[9] As a result, Li had the freedom to pick her own coaching staff but she would be responsible for the cost of travel, training and coaching. She could keep more of her winnings,[10] with only 8 to 12 percent of her winnings go to the Chinese Tennis Association as opposed to 65 percent previously.[11]Li Na has a tattoo on her chest, and hid it for many years since tattoos are not widely accepted in China, especially on women.[12][13]Career summary[edit]1999–2002: Dominance on the ITF Circuit[edit]Li turned professional in 1999, and that year won three of the very first four singles tournaments she entered on the ITF Circuit, two at Shenzhen and one at Westende, Belgium. She also won all of her first seven ITF doubles tournaments she entered.In 2000, she won a total of 52 singles matches on the ITF circuit, more than any other player, notching another eight tournament titles including one at $50,000 level, two at $25,000, and an unbroken run of four successive $10,000 tournament wins in March and April.Notable individual victories in the course of the year included wins over FlaviaPennetta, Emmanuelle Gagliardi, Maria Elena Camerin, Tamarine Tanasugarn and Yayuk Basuki. In June, after Li's world ranking had risen to no. 136 on the strength of her ITF performances alone, she gained direct entry into her first WTA Tour event at Tashkent. Despite winning the first set, Li lost her first WTA singles match to Anna Zaporozhanova in three sets, but she captured the women's doubles title at Tashkent with Li Ting against Zaporozhanova and Iroda Tulyaganova.By the end of 2000, Li had won four WTA singles matches, this brought her cumulative ITF singles title count up to 11. That year, she also won seven more ITF doubles events, 6 of them with Li Ting. Li was mostly absent from the tour in 2001. She won two further $25,000 ITF singles tournaments, defeating Roberta Vinci in the final at Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Liu Nan-Nan in the final at Guangzhou in July, but then played only one further match for the rest of the year, leading her ranking to fall to no. 303 by the year's close.She won her 15th career ITF doubles tournament at Hangzhou in March.In 2002, she came through qualifying to win her first $75,000 singles tournament at Midland, USA in February, defeating Laura Granville, Tatiana Perebiynis, and Mashona Washington en route to the title, the 14th of her career. But she then played only one more match (a loss to ZuzanaOndrášková in the $50,000 event at Dinan, France that April), followed by a lengthy absence from the circuit for the next 25 months.Sources vary as to the causes of this absence, the Chinese media mostly cited the conflict between her and the China's National Tennis Team's administration and coaching staff.[5][6][7] Some claimed that she just wanted a break from professional tennis so she could concentrate on her studies at university.2004: Successful return to professional tennis[edit]In May 2004, Li returned to the competition after having not played since 2002. Although she was unranked, she won 26 successive matches to notch three further $25,000 tournament wins and another $50,000 title, increasing her career singles title count to 18, only to have her winning streak finally snapped by Evgenia Linetskaya in the semifinal of the $50,000 Bronx tournament that August. However, she won her 16th ITF doubles tournament at the same event, the 17th overall doubles title of her career.That September, she lost in the final of a $25,000 tournament to compatriot Zheng Jie, before returning to the WTA circuit, thanks to a wildcard entry into qualifying at the Beijing. There, she defeated Antonella Serra Zanetti, Marta Domachowska, and Nicole Pratt before losing in the deciding-set tie-break after a very close second-round main-draw tussle against newly crowned US Open Champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, during which she held match points against Kuznetsova. The Russian afterwards praised her Chinese opponent, stating that she had felt as though she was up against a top-5 player.The very next week, Li battled her way through qualifying into the WTA event at Guangzhou (a Tier IV event at the time, though since has been upgraded to Tier III), then beat Vera Dushevina, Jelena Janković, Kristina Brandi, and Li Ting in the main draw to reach the final, where sheovercame Martina Suchá to win her first WTA Tour title. By doing so, Li became the first Chinese tennis player to win a WTA event.On the back of the ranking points accrued through this result, on October 4, 2004, she broke into the WTA top 100 for the first time.To cap off her most successful year as a singles player yet, she competed in two $50,000 ITF tournaments at Shenzhen, winning the first outright to bring her the 19th ITF singles title and 20th overall singles title of her career, but losing in the quarterfinals of the second to lower-ranked country-woman Yan Zi. These results elevated Li Na to world no. 80 by the close of the year, a year in which she won 51 singles matches and lost just four.2008[edit]Li Na had not played a professional match in half a year and had resultantly slipped to no. 29 in the WTA rankings when she returned from her rib injury in January 2008 to compete at the 2008 Mondial Australian Women's Hardcourts in Gold Coast, Australia. In the first round, she narrowly defeated seventh seed Sybille Bammer. After a comfortable second round victoryover wildcard Monique Adamczak, she was drawn to meet the top seed Nicole Vaidišová in the quarterfinals. Li won their encounter in straight sets, advancing to the semifinals, where she edged past Patty Schnyder.[14] In the final, she narrowly prevailed against Victoria Azarenka, not only ending her 3-year title drought (since Guangzhou 2004) but scoring her second WTA singles title of her career.Despite rising back up to world no. 24 following this victory, she then withdrew from the 2008 Medibank International in Sydney, after suffering a right knee injury. Her failure to defend her previous year's semifinal performance at this event cost her 125 ranking points, which dipped her ranking back down to no. 30 for the week beginning 14 January.Going into the 2008 Australian Open, she had a further 140 ranking points to defend from her fourth-round performance in 2007. Faced with a relatively lenient draw in the early rounds, she survived a close three-set tussle with Séverine Brémond in the first round, before surpassing Maria Elena Camerin in straight sets in round two. A revitalised Marta Domachowska remained between her and the defence of her ranking points, and although Li Na won the first set convincingly, she faltered thereafter and finally ceded the match to her Polish opponent by a single break of serve in the closely fought deciding set.Having slipped three places to world no. 33 by the time she entered the Tier II tournamentat Antwerp in early February, she nonetheless progressed to the semifinals withback-to-back-to-back straight-sets wins over Russian veteran Elena Likhovtseva, Slovak world no.45 Dominika Cibulková, and on-form Swedish world no. 66Sofia Arvidsson. However, she withered in the semifinals against world no. 47 Karin Knapp, despite having taken an early lead with a break of service in the first set, ultimately ceding the match to her Italian opponent in two sets. This tournament brought her back up within the top 30 at world no. 29.The next week in the Tier I 2008 Qatar Total Open, Li met Likhovtseva again in the first round. This time, after taking the first set comfortably, she was challenged to a much tougher battle, but eventually won in three sets. In round 2, she scored her second straight-sets victory in four career head-to-heads against Russian world no. 6 Anna Chakvetadze (whom she had last beaten at the French Open in 2005), saving a set point in the first set tie-break, before recovering to win. In the third round, she enjoyed a more comfortable victory over Israeli world no. 17 Shahar Pe'er, recovering from a 1–3 deficit in the second set. In the quarterfinals, she met her old rival and friend world no. 4 Jelena Janković, coming into the match with a winning 3–1 head-to-head record to her credit against the Serbian player. By defeating Janković she extended this record to 4:1 and moved into the semifinals, where she played Vera Zvonareva, against whom she had won both of her previous encounters. Despite taking the first set, Li lost the second by the same scoreline; and although she was 3–2 up in the final set, she then ceded four successive games to her opponent to lose the match.Her ranking having risen back to no. 23 on the strength of this performance, she was prevented from consolidating on this recovery by suffering a right knee injury, which forced her to pull out of her scheduled entries into both the Tier II event at Bangalore in early March and the Tier I tournament at Indian Wells in the middle of the month. She returned to action at the International Women's Open in Eastbourne, winning one round before losing to Nadia Petrova. She then contested Wimbledon, defeating Anastasia Rodionova before losing to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.At the Beijing Olympics, following early-round victories against world no. 3 Svetlana Kuznetsova, Ayumi Morita, and Kaia Kanepi, she went on to defeat one of the favourites, Venus Williams, in the quarterfinals. Li was trailing 1–4 in the first set, but managed to strengthen her game to win in straight sets. Li lost her semifinal match to sixth seed Dinara Safina and was then defeated in the bronze final by Vera Zvonareva. At the following US Open, Li was defeated by the Beijing Olympics gold medalist Elena Dementieva in the fourth round.In the 2008 Porsche Grand Prix, the unseeded Li defeated no. 1 ranked Serena Williams in the second round in three sets. Li thus became only the second Chinese player to defeat a world no. 1 player, following Zheng Jie's victory over Ana Ivanovic at Wimbledon in 2008..2011: Historic victory at Roland Garros followed by inconsistent results[edit]Li played in the Medibank International Sydney as the eighth seed, making fast work of Australian wildcard Anastasia Rodionova and winning a tough three-set match against Virginie Razzano in the first two rounds. In the quarterfinals she met two-time Grand Slam winner Svetlana Kuznetsova and came through with a win. She defeated surprise qualifier Bojana Jovanovski in the semifinals to advance to her eighth WTA final.[15] Li faced world no. 3 Kim Clijsters in the final, and despite trailing 5–0 in the first set, Li went on to defeat Clijsters, capturing the fourth WTA title of her career. Li was the ninth seed at the Australian Open, where she reached her first Grand Slam singles final, the first tennis player representing an Asian country to achieve that feat. On the way she ousted eighth seed Victoria Azarenka in straight sets. She defeated world no. 1 Caroline Wozniacki in the semifinals to reach the final, after saving a match point in the second set. She faced no. 3 seed Kim Clijsters (whom she had defeated at the Medibank International). Although Li claimed the first set, Clijsters was able to rally back and claim the championship. Despite the loss, Li's ranking rose to a career high of world no. 7.Despite a good early start to the season, Li then had a five-match losing streak. After receiving byes into the second rounds, she lost in a hardly fought match against Yanina Wickmayer at the Dubai Tennis Championships, lucky loser Klára Zakopalová at the Qatar Ladies Open and countrywoman Peng Shuai at Indian Wells. Despite this, after Indian Wells she peaked at acareer-high ranking of world no. 6 due to Jelena Janković's failures to defend her points.Li's losing streak continued, when she was upset in the Miami Masters by Johanna Larsson. With this loss, and Andy Murray's loss at Miami, both Australian Open finalists had yet to win a match since their first major final. Despite Li's successive losses, her no. 6 ranking was ensured dueto Samantha Stosur's inability to defend her clay-season points. After a week, she fell back to no. 7. Li then broke her losing streak by winning her first-round match against Anastasija Sevastova in Stuttgart. However, she lost to Sabine Lisicki in the second round. Even though she was not able todefend all her Stuttgart ranking points, she rose back to no. 6. However, due to her disappointing results, Li Na sacked her husband as coach and hired Dane Michael Mortensen.[citation needed]She entered the Madrid Open as sixth seed. In the first two rounds, she defeated María JoséMartínez Sánchez and Iveta Benešová without much difficulty. In the third round she got the better of Roberta Vinci coming back from a set deficit. She then defeated Bethanie Mattek-Sands after recovering from a break down in the deciding set. This victory marked her the first semifinals appearance in Madrid, where she lost to eventual champion Petra Kvitová.Li's resurgence continued into the Internazionali d'Italia. Seeded fourth, she received a bye in the first round. She won her opening match against Lourdes Domínguez Lino and defeated Jarmila Gajdošová and Gréta Arn in the next two rounds en route to back-to-back semifinals on clay. However, she lost to Samantha Stosur in two sets.Li won her first Major title at the French Open on June 4, by doing so she made history and became the first tennis player from an Asian country to win Grand Slam singles champion. Seeded sixth, she defeated Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová, Silvia Soler Espinosa, Sorana Cîrstea, ninth seed Petra Kvitová, fourth seed Victoria Azarenka, seventh seed Maria Sharapova, and fifth seed and defending champion Francesca Schiavone in the final, a match that was watched by 330 million viewers worldwide.[16] After the match, Li Na was praised by the Chinese media,[17] and her popularity throughout China was expected to grow significantly in the coming months, as she became the first Chinese singles player, male or female, ever to win a tennis Grand Slam title, ensuring her place in the sport's history.[18] Following the French Open, Li rose to a career high ranking of World No. 4.As the second seed at the Aegon International, Li fell in the second round to Daniela Hantuchová. Due to the withdrawal of Kim Clijsters, Li was the third seed at Wimbledon, her highest seeding at a Grand Slam. She beat Alla Kudryavtseva in the first round but lost in the second round to eventual semifinalist Sabine Lisicki of Germany even though she had two match points at 5–3 and served for the match twice at 5–4 and 6–5.[19]Li suffered a surprise knock-out at the 2011 US Open at the hands of 53rd ranked Romanianteen Simona Halep.Then at the 2011 China Open, Li suffered a first round defeat by Romanian player Monica Niculescu. However, as a result of Vera Zvonareva and Samantha Stosur's inability to go past the third round, she was able to qualify for the 2011 WTA Tour Championships for the first time in her career.Li made her debut appearance at the WTA Tour Championships in Istanbul, Turkey. She was drawn in the White Group along with Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka and Samantha Stosur. She beat Sharapova in her opening match but lost her other two matches, failing to make the semifinals. She finished the year as the world no. 5 after a memorable yet very inconsistent season.Li Na lost two awards in final round for "Annual Breakthrough Award" to Blake Griffin and "Annual Award for best female tennis players" to Serena Williams conducted and honoured by ESPY Sports Award.[20]On 17 and 18 December, Li participated in the Li Na & Friends Tennis Exhibition 2011 in Wuhan, China.。