LI NA is making a habit of rewriting the history books. Yesterday she became the first Chinese player to reach the quarter-final of a grand-slam event by recovering from a shaky start to defeat Nicola Vaidisova, the French Open semi-finalist, 4-6, 6-1, 6-3. That there are more Chinese competitors (one) in the last eight than there are Americans (none) speaks volumes for how far this boom tennis nation has come. The East is rising.
“I’m proud of myself and I’m very proud of my country as well,” Li, speaking through an interpreter, said last night. “It represents that Chinese tennis is getting better and better. The most satisfactory aspect for me is that I didn’t think I would get this far.”
Li’s journey began in October 2004 when she became the first Chinese player to win a singles title on the WTA Tour with victory as a qualifier in the southern city of Guangzhou. In the same year, Li Ting and Sun Tiantian won Olympic gold and Zheng Jie, partnered by Yan Zi, followed up that success by winning the Australian Open doubles title this year.
The success has come about after the Chinese Government poured money into the game in an attempt to establish itself on the tennis map before the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008. A large proportion of funding has also come from Tennis Australia, which rebranded the Australian Open as the grand-slam tournament of the Asia Pacific region in order to attract future investment from China.
It is paying off. There are now six Chinese women in the top 100. The men’s game has been slow to benefit — its highest-ranked player, Wang Yu, Jr, is No 353 in the world — but there was reason for optimism yesterday when Xu Junchao, a 17-year-old, advanced to the second round of the junior competition.
It looked as if Li’s fairytale was about to come to an abrupt end when Vaidisova, the No 10 seed from the Czech Republic, broke serve in the first game and proceeded to take control of the opening set, which she clinched with an exquisite drop shot. But it is not in Li’s nature to give in without a fight. She gritted her teeth and chased down every ball and ran Vaidisova into the ground. The 18-year-old was shaken and her groundstrokes fell apart. Li won the second set with an ace and broke in the fifth game of the third before sealing her place in the last eight, where she will face Kim Clijsters, the No 2 seed from Belgium.
“I haven’t had contact with my family yet, but lots of friends have sent messages of congratulations,” Li, 24, said. Asked whether she has dreamt of winning Wimbledon, she replied: “I have had this dream but I have to drop it because the more you expect, the more disappointment there is likely to be.”
There was certainly disappointment for Vaidisova, who, after her run to the last four in Paris, had expected more of herself on her second visit to SW19. “I think I struggled with my rhythm from the start,” she said. “I felt I didn’t move very well, I was a little tired, a little tight. I am definitely a little disappointed right now, but I still have a long career in front of me and can still do much better.”
Li started out as a badminton player. Her coach “didn’t think I had too much potential” so she switched to tennis. Would she have been more famous had she stuck with badminton? “Probably I would be a champion, a world champion, if I played badminton,” she joked.
Instead, Li turned professional in 1999 and won three of the first tournaments she entered on the ITF circuit before she took a two-year break from the game in 2002 to attend university. Her boyfriend, who travels with her, persuaded her to return to the circuit in 2004 and the rest, as we now know, is history.
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