Li Na’s victory in the 2011 French Open makes her the first Chinese tennis player to ever win a Grand Slam event. She did so by defeating defending champ Francesca Schiavone with a score of 6-4, 7-6 on Saturday. Li, who went in to the French Open as a sixth seeded player, used her groundstrokes to gain a 31-12 advantage over her Italian opponent and winning the last nine points of the match.
Her victory opens another era of tennis for Chinese tennis payers. The sport, long dominated by Americans, Europeans, and recently, by male Serbian player Novak Djokovic, is enjoying a surge of new talents coming mostly from the Asian pool of players.
“China tennis - we’re getting bigger and bigger,” said Li. She is expected to rise up to a world number four in WTA ranking on Monday, a career high for the Chinese champion. Aside from holding the record for being the first Chinese citizen to win a Grand Slam, Li is also the first woman from her country to win a WTA singles title, the first to jump into the top 10 WTA rankings, and the first Chinese player to reach a Grand Slam final at the Australian Open in January, when she lost to Kim Clijsters.
“I had no experience. I was very nervous,” Li said of her defeat to Clijsters. “For my second time in a final, I had the experience. I knew how to do it. And I had more self-confidence.”
This victory is also her fist major victory on clay. The Chinese player’s flat forehands and powerful backhands are better built for hard courts, and are not particularly suitable for the soft and slow red clay courts of Roland Garros. In fact, Li lost in the third rounds of three previous French Opens. However, she has improved on her slides, a change noticed by Schiavone, who said, “She slides a little bit more.”
Schiavone is the fourth top 10 seeded player that Li Na had to play against before reaching the French Open finals. She also defeated Maria Sharapova in the semis.