Ten reasons to celebrate Li Na
Li Na, the two-time Grand Slam champion, announced her retirement from tennis with immediate effect. Wimbledon.com puts forward 10 reasons why she was so special...
1. She made "tennis explode" in China. That, according to Chris Evert, was what happened after Li Na took the 2011 French Open title, so becoming the first Chinese to win a Grand Slam singles title. "The country now has some 15 million tennis players; 116 million people watched her win the French Open," Evert once wrote in a tribute published in Time magazine. "That kind of exposure is crucial for our sport; and it never would have happened without Li." News of Li’s retirement, brought on by knee problems, broke just before the first WTA tournament to be played in her “backyard” in her home city of Wuhan, with a strong entry-list which includes Serena Williams, Petra Kvitova, Maria Sharapova, Eugenie Bouchard and Caroline Wozniacki. And next month, the women’s season-ending championships, the WTA Finals, will be held in Singapore, the first time they have been staged in Asia-Pacific. No wonder the WTA view Li, who is 32, as “a pioneer” with a tennis racket. “It’s hard to be a household name in a nation with 1.4 billion people,” said the WTA’s chairman and chief executive, Stacey Allaster, “but that’s what Li is.”
2. For the retirement letter, addressed to “my dear friends”, which encouraged others to be “the bird that sticks out”. “As hard as it’s been to come to this decision, I am at peace with it. I have no regrets. I wasn’t supposed to be here in the first place, remember? Not many people believed in my talent and my abilities, yet I found a way to persevere, to prove them (and sometimes myself) wrong,” wrote Li, whose world ranking peaked at number two. Li’s long letter appeared to thank everyone she has come into contact with during her career, and finished with this message: “Whether you want to be a tennis player, a doctor, a teacher or a business leader, I urge you to believe in yourself and follow your dream. If I could do it, you can too. Be the bird that sticks out. With hard work, your dreams will come true.”
3. For all her success on clay and hard courts – those were the surfaces she won her Grand Slam titles on – she was also a decent grass-court player. Li is a member of the Last Eight Club at Wimbledon – indeed, she qualified three times, with a trio of quarterfinal appearances at The Championships. Each time – against Kim Clijsters in 2006, opposite Serena Williams in 2010, and facing Agnieszka Radwanska in 2013 – it took a fine grass-court opponent to stop her from going deeper into the fortnight. As it turned out, Li’s last competitive appearance anywhere in tennis came at Wimbledon, with a third-round defeat against Barbora Zahlavova Strycova of the Czech Republic in this summer’s tournament.
4. For being China’s first great tennis capitalist - while she didn’t quite match Maria Sharapova for power in the endorsements market, she came very close. One effect of Li's success on the clay of Roland Garros was to push her up the Forbes money-list of the world's richest athletes - the magazine estimated that the only sportswoman earning more than her was Sharapova (they are the tennis equivalent of label-mates, sharing an agent).
5. She was a hoot in front of a microphone. Australian tennis fans will long remember the night she turned centre court at Melbourne Park into the Rod Laver Comedy Club by delivering the funniest victory speech in tennis history. Arguably the most impressive part of Li's success at this January’s Australian Open - where she won her second Grand Slam title - was the post-match address. A straight-sets winner over Slovakia's Dominika Cibulkova, Li began by thanking her agent, Max Eisenbud: "Max, agent, makes me rich. Thanks a lot." Turning to her spouse and former coach, Jiang Shan, she said: "Now, of course, my husband, you're famous in China. Thanks to him for everything, travelling with me as my hitting partner. He fixes my drink, fixes my racket. So, thanks a lot, you're a nice guy. Also, you were lucky to find me."
6. Li is a hugely popular figure with her colleagues – that was obvious from how the locker-room reacted to the news of her retirement. “What an amazing person,” said Ana Ivanovic, while Victoria Azarenka described Li as “a hilarious girl”, and Caroline Wozniacki called the Chinese “one of the funniest and nicest players on the tour”.
7. For having a husband who apparently took the English name of Dennis just because it rhymes with tennis. Li often teased him in public. There was the occasion during the 2011 Australian Open when Li happened to mention during an on-court interview she had had difficulty sleeping because of her husband's snoring. She apparently ordered him to kip in the hotel bathroom.
8. Time magazine once included Li in their annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world; they also put her on the cover.
9. For playing on after bumping her head in a Grand Slam final. “I was worried when my head hit the floor because for two seconds I couldn’t see anything,” Li would say after her defeat against Victoria Azarenka in the 2013 Australian Open final. Two years earlier, when she was the runner-up to Kim Clijsters at the same tournament, she had been the first Asian player to appear in a Grand Slam singles final.
10. For the body art – she has a tattoo of a rose on her chest, an act of love for her husband. "I had been with him for three years when I had it done - I wanted to do something for him and for us,” she once said. “I chose a rose because it's romantic and having it on my chest means I have given my heart to him."
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