Tennis: Li Na leads Chinese revolution in Australia

-DR. ABDUL RUFF COLACHAL 

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Chinese Li Na,  who turns 32 next month,  has made it third time lucky in the Australian Open final, beating Dominika Cibulkova 7-6 (3), 6-0 on 25^th January to become the oldest woman to clinch the title here in the Open era.

Li lost Australian Open finals to Kim Clijsters in 2011 and to Victoria Azarenka last year. In between, she won the 2011 French Open to become the first Chinese woman to win a major.

In both her previous finals at Melbourne Park, Li won the first set but went down in three. Against Azarenka last year, she stumbled and twisted her ankle, and needed a medical timeout in the third set after hitting her head on the court. She had no such trouble against No. 20-seeded Cibulkova this time after winning the first set in a tiebreaker.

Li broke Cibulkova, held, and then had a breakpoint in the third game. Cibulkova held, and then broke Li in the sixth game thanks to consecutive double-faults. Li broke in the 11th game and had a set point in the 12th, but lost three straight points to ensure it went to the tiebreaker.

After rolling through the second set in 27 minutes, Li held up both thumbs to the crowd, and held back tears. She went immediately to the side of the court to shake hands with her coach Carlos Rodriguez in the stands.

Li thanked her husband for being a “hitting partner, baggage handler and general helper”. That perhaps is the Chinese way of handling men in general.  

Not a top player herself, Cibulkova, one of the shortest players ever to reach a Grand Slam final at 1.61-meters (5-foot-3), had four wins over Top 20 players in the tournament, including a fourth-round upset of third-seeded Maria Sharapova and a straight-sets semifinal trouncing of No. 5 Agnieszka Radwanska. In the semifinals, she held off 19-year-old Canadian Eugenie Bouchard, and never had to face a player ranked in the top 20 en route to the final.

Forget Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova, Li Na is regarded as the hottest property in women's tennis, not just because of her ability, but because she has opened the door to the sport's future.

In becoming Asia's first grand slam champion at the 2011 French Open, the wise-cracking Chinese superstar brought tennis to a huge potential new audience including 1.3 billion of her compatriots and a region encompassing two-thirds of humanity.

Li was the cover girl for last year's Time magazine issue rating the world's 100 most influential people, and she is listed by Forbes as the globe's second highest-earning female athlete behind Sharapova.

After a fallow period following the 2011 French Open victory, when the distractions of sponsors and media drove her off her game, she has been reborn since teaming with coach Carlos Rodriguez in 2012.

And despite toying with the idea of retiring last year, because of poor results and press criticism in her homeland, Li has found the form of her life as she heads towards her 32nd birthday next month.

Li finished will rise to No.3 in the world, the highest ever by an Asian player, and after becoming the first Asian winner of the tournament tagged "the Grand Slam of Asia-Pacific", after losing two finals in 2011 and 2013.

In September, Li's home city of Wuhan will host a new, premier-level tournament, unfortunately one of six WTA events on Chinese soil this year. So when Li won her second grand slam title, against Dominika Cibulkova in Australian Open final, it's fair to say the result was cheered at the highest level.

 All premier-level tournaments in sports in fact destroy true competitive sport spirits and only encourage  fixings  through establishing  immoral links. Cricketism is the  worst example  to cite here, where  because of IPL  type tournaments almost all national teams  play  for individual  benefits, rather than the respective  country's  pride. They just promote bogus rankings by rotation.