1、Li Na (te nnis)This is a Chinese name ; the family name is Li.Li Na (Chinese :李娜;pinyin : LIN born February 26, 1982) is a Chinese professional tennis player. As of September 2013, Li has won 7 WTA and 19 ITF singles titles. Li rose to prominence after she won the 2011 French Open singles title, mak

2、ing 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 cou ntry to appear in a Grand Slam sin gles fin al, a milesto ne she achieved at the 2011 Australia n Open . She was also the runner-up at the2013

3、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 curre ntly the World No. 3 and Chi nese No. 1 (out of 4 in the top-100). Li Na was born on February 26, 1982, in

4、Wuhan , Hubei, China. Her father Li Shengpeng (李盛鵬)was a professional badminton player and later worked as a sales rep for a Wuhan based company. He died from a rare cardiovascular disease whe n Li Na was 14.At age six, Li Na started playing badminton, following her father's footsteps. Just befo

5、re she turned eight, Li made the tra nsiti on from badm inton to tennis whe n she and her pare nts were convin ced by coach Xia Xiyao of the Wuha n youth tennis club that this would be the right career move for her.Lijoined China's National Tennis Team in 1997. In the following year, Li, sponsor

6、ed byNike , went to Joh n Newcombe Academy in Texas to study tennis. She studied there for 10 mon ths and retur ned to China. Li tur ned professi onal in 1999 at age sixtee n.At the end of 2002, Li left the national tennis team to study part-time atHuazhong University ofScie nee and Tech no logy , w

7、here she completed her bachelor's degree in journalism in 2009. The Chin ese media cited various reas ons for this. Some reported that the relati on ship betwee n her and her teammate, future husba nd Jia ng Shan ( 姜山),was opposed by the n ati onal team's management,some reported that her co

8、ach Yu Liqiao ( 余麗橋)was too strict anddemanding,while other reports claimed that her request for a personal coach did not go through. 7 8Person al life editLi Na has a tattoo on her chest, and hid it for many years since tattoos are not widely accepted inChi na, especially on wome n. 1213Career summ

9、ary edit 1999 -2002: Domi nance on the ITF Circuit editLi tur ned professi onal in 1999, and that year won three of the very first four sin gles tour name nts she entered on the ITF Circuit, two atShenzhen and one at Westende , Belgium. She also won all of herfirst seve n ITF doubles tour name nts s

10、he en tered.In 2000, she won a total of 52 sin gles matches on the ITF circuit, more tha n any other player, no tchi ng ano ther eight tour name nt titles in clud ing one at $50,000 level, two at $25,000, and an un broke n run of four successive $10,000 tour name nt wins in March and April.Notable i

11、n dividual victories in the course of the year in cluded 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 int

12、o her first WTA Tour eve nt at Tashke nt . Despite winning the first set, Li lost her first WTA sin gles match toAnna Zaporozha nova in three sets, but she captured thewomen's doubles title at Tashkent with Li Ting against Zaporozhanova and Iroda Tulyaganova .By the end of 2000, Li had won four

13、WTA sin gles matches, this brought her cumulative ITF sin gles title count up to 11. That year, she also won seven more ITF doubles events, 6 of them withLi Ting .Li was mostly abse nt from the tour in 2001. She won two further $25,000 ITF sin gles tour name nts, defeat in g Roberta Vinci in the fin

14、al at Ho Chi Minh City , Viet nam, 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 tour name nt at Han gzhou in March.In 2002, she ca

15、me through qualify ing to win her first $75,000 sin gles tour name nt at Midla nd, USA in February, defeating Laura Granville , Tatiana Perebiynis , and Mashona Washington en route to the title, the 14th of her career. But she the n played only one more match (a loss toZuza naOndr a ?kov din the $50

16、,000 eve nt at Dinan, France that April), followed by a len gthy abse nee from the circuit for the n ext 25 mon ths.Sources vary as to the causes of this abse nee, the Chin ese media mostly cited the con flict betwee n her and the Chi na's Nati onal Tennis Team's admi nistratio n and coachi

17、ng staff. 567 Some claimed that she just wan ted a break from professi onal tennis so she could concen trate on her studies at uni versity.2004: Successful retur n to professi onal tenniseditIn May 2004, Li returned to the competition after having not played since 2002. Although she was unran ked, s

18、he won 26 successive matches to no tch three further $25,000 tour name nt wins and another $50,000 title, increasing her career singles title count to 18, only to have her winning streak fin ally sn apped by Evge nia Lin etskaya in the semifi nal of the $50,000 Bronx tour name nt that August. Howeve

19、r, she won her 16th ITF doubles tour name nt at the same eve nt, the 17th overall doubles title of her career.That September, she lost in the final of a $25,000 tour name nt to compatriotZheng Jie , beforereturning to the WTA circuit, thanks to a wildcard entry into qualifying at theBeijing . There,

20、 shedefeated Antonella Serra Zanetti , Marta Domachowska , and Nicole Pratt before losing in the decid in g-set tie-break after a very close sec on d-rou nd mai n-draw tussle aga inst n ewly crow ned US Open Champion Svetlana Kuznetsova , during which she held match points against Kuznetsova. The Ru

21、ssian afterwards praised her Chinese opponent, stating that she had felt as though she was up aga inst a top-5 player.The very n ext week, Li battled her way through qualify ing into the WTA eve nt atGuan gzhou (a TierIV eve nt at the time, though since has bee n upgraded to Tier III), the n beat Ve

22、ra Dushev ina , Jele na Jan kovi? , Krist ina Brandi , and Li Ting in the main draw to reach the fin al, where she overcame Martina Such do win her first WTA Tour title. By doing so, Li became the first Chinese tennis player to win a WTA eve nt.On the back of the ranking points accrued through this

23、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 sin gles player yet, she competed in two $50,000 ITF tour name nts at Shen zhe n, winning the first outright to bring her the 19th ITF sin gles title and 20th overall singles title

24、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 sin gles matches and lost just four.2008 editLi Na had not played a professional match in half a year a

25、nd had resultantly slipped to no. 29 in the WTA rankings whe n she retur ned from her rib injury in Jan uary 2008 to compete at the2008Mon dial Australia n Wome n's Hardcourts in Gold Coast , Australia. I n the first round, she n arrowly defeated seventh seed Sybille Bammer . After a comfortable

26、 second round victory over wildcard Monique Adamczak , she was drawn to meet the top seed Nicole Vaidi?ovidthequarterfi nals. Li won their en cou nter in straight sets, adva ncing to the semifi nals, where she edged14past Patty Schn yder . In the fin al, she n arrowly prevailed aga inst Victoria Aza

27、re nka , not on ly 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 Mediba nk In ter nati onal in Sydn ey, after sufferi ng a right knee in jur

28、y. Her failure to defe nd her previous year's semifi nal performa nce at this eve nt cost her 125 ranking poin ts, which dipped her ranking back dow n to no. 30 for the week beg inning 14 Jan uary.Going into the 2008 Australia n Open, she had a further 140 ranking points to defe nd from her four

29、th-round performance in 2007. Faced with a relatively lenient draw in the early rounds, she survived a close three-set tussle withSeverine Br mond in the first round, before surpassing MariaElena Camerin in straight sets in round two. A revitalised Marta Domachowska remained between her and the defe

30、 nce of her ranking poin ts, and although Li Na won the first set convincin gly, she faltered thereafter and fin ally ceded the match to her Polish opp onent by a sin gle break of serve in the closely fought decidi ng set.Having slipped three places to world no. 33 by the time she en tered the Tier

31、II tour name nt at An twerp in early February, she non etheless progressed to the semifi nals with back-to-back-to-back straight-sets wins over Russian veteranElena Likhovtseva , Slovak world no.45 Domi nika Cibulkov ,dand on -form Swedish world no. 66 Sofia Arvidss on . However, she withered in the

32、 semifinals against world no. 47 Karin Knapp , despite having taken an early lead with a break of service in the first set, ultimately cedi ng the match to her Italia n opp onent in two sets. This tour name nt brought her back up with in the top 30 at world no. 29.The next week in the Tier I 2008 Qa

33、tar 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 aga inst Russia n world

34、 no. 6 Anna Chakvetadze (whom she had last beate n 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. 17Shahar Pe'er ,recovering from a 1-3 deficit in the second s

35、et. In the quarterfinals, she met her old rival and friendworld no. 4 Jelena Jankovi? , coming into the match with a winning 3 head-to-head record to hercredit aga inst the Serbia n player. By defeati ng Jan kovi? she exte nded this record to4:1 and movedinto the semifinals, where she playedVera Zvo

36、nareva , against whom she had won both of herprevious encounters. Despite taking the first set, Li lost the second by the same scoreline; and although she was 3 up in the final set, she the n ceded four successive games to her opp onent to lose the match.Her ranking hav ing rise n back to no. 23 on

37、the stre ngth of this performa nce, she was preve nted from con solidati ng on this recovery by sufferi ng a right knee in jury, which forced her to pull out of her scheduled en tries into both the Tier II eve nt at Ban galore in early March and the Tier I tour name nt at In dia n Wells in the middl

38、e of the mon th. She returned to acti on at theIntern ati onalWomen's Open in Eastbourne, winning one round before losing to Nadia Petrova . She thencon tested Wimbled on, defeat ingAn astasia Rodi onova before los ing to An astasia Pavlyuche nkovaAt the Beijing Olympics , following early-round

39、victories against world no. 3SvetlanaKuzn etsova , Ayumi Morita , and Kaia Kan epi , she went on to defeat one of the favourites, Venus Williams , in the quarterfi nals. Li was traili ng 1 in the first set, but man aged to stre ngthe n hergame to win in straight sets. Li lost her semifinal match to

40、sixth seed Dinara Safina and was then defeated in the bronze final byVera Zvonareva . At the following US Open, Li was defeated by theBeijing 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 sec

41、ond rou nd in three sets. Li thus became only the sec ond Chin ese player to defeat a world no. 1 player, followi ng Zheng Jie's victory over Ana Iva no vic at Wimbled on in 2008.2011: Historic victory at Roland Garros followed by inconsistent results editLi played in the Mediba nk In ter nati o

42、nal Sydneyas the eighth seed, making fast work of Australia nwildcard An astasia Rodi onova and wi nning a tough three-set match aga inst Virgi nie Razza no in the first two rou nds. In the quarterfi nals she met two-time Grand Slam winnerSvetla na Kuzn etsova andcame through with a win. She defeate

43、d surprise qualifierBojana Jovanovski in the semifinals to15adva nee to her eighth WTA fin al. Li faced world no. 3 Kim Clijsters in the fin al, and despite trailing 5 in the first set, Li went on to defeat Clijsters, capturing the fourth WTA title of her career.Li was the ninth seed at theAustralia

44、 n Open , where she reached her first Grand Slam sin gles fin al,the first tennis player represe nting an Asia n cou ntry to achieve that feat. On the way she ousted eighth seed Victoria Azarenka in straight sets. She defeated world no. 1Caroline Wozniacki in thesemifi nals to reach the fin al, afte

45、r sav ing a match point in the sec ond set. She faced no. 3 seedKimClijsters (whom she had defeated at the Mediba nk Intern ati on al). Although Li claimed the first set, Clijsters was able to rally back and claim the champi on ship. Despite the loss, Li's ranking rose to a career high of world

46、no. 7.Despite a good early start to the seas on, Li the n had a five-match losi ng streak. After receiv ing byes into the second rounds, she lost in a hardly fought match against Yanina Wickmayer at the Dubai Tennis Champi on ships , lucky loser Kl fla Zakopalov<at the Qatar Ladies Open andcountr

47、ywoman Peng Shuai at Indian Wells . Despite this, after Indian Wells she peaked at a career-high ranking of world no. 6 due to Jelena Jankovi? '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

48、Murray 's loss at Miami, both Australian Open finalists had yet to win a match since their first major fin al. Despite Li's successive losses, her no. 6 ranking was en sured due to Sama ntha Stosur 's in ability to defe nd her clay-seas on poi nts. After a week, she fell back to no. 7.Li

49、 the n broke her los ing streak by winning her first-rou nd match aga instAn astasija Sevastova inStuttgart. However, she lost to Sabine Lisicki in the second round. Even though she was not able to defend all her Stuttgart ranking points, she rose back to no. 6. However, due to her disappointing res

50、ults, 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 Mar P Jos e Mart nez S mchez and Iveta Ben e?ov without much difficulty .In the third round she got the better of Roberta Vinci c

51、oming back from a set deficit. She then defeatedBethanie Mattek-Sandsafterrecovering from a break down in the deciding set. This victory marked her the first semifinals appeara nee in Madrid, where she lost to eve ntual champi on Petra Kvitov . aLi's resurgence continued into the Internazionali

52、d'Italia . Seeded fourth, she received a bye in the first round. She won her opening match against Lourdes Dom inguez Lino and defeated Jarmila Gajdo?ov a and Gr eta 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

53、 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 Z hlavov -Stry cov a Silvia Soler Espinosa , Sorana C?rstea , ninth seed Petra Kvitov fourth s

54、eed Victoria Azarenka , seventh seed Maria Sharapova , and fifth seed and defe nding champi on Fra ncesca Schiav one in the fin al, a match that was watched by 330 millio n1617viewers worldwide. After the match, Li Na was praised by the Chin ese media,and herpopularity throughout China was expected

55、to grow sig nifica ntly in the coming mon ths, as she became the first Chinese singles player, male or female, ever to win a tennis Grand Slam title, en suri ng her place in the sport's history. 18 Follow ing the Fre nch Ope n, Li rose to a career high ran ki ng of World No. 4.As the sec ond see

56、d at the Aegon In ter nati onal , Li fell in the sec ond rou nd toDani ela Han tuchovaDue to the withdrawal of Kim Clijsters , Li was the third seed at Wimbled on , her highest seedi ng at a Grand Slam. She beat Alla Kudryavtseva in the first rou nd but lost in the sec ond rou nd to eve ntual semifinal