Li Na

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Li Na

Country	China
Residence	Wuhan, Hubei, China
Date of birth	February 26, 1982
Place of birth	Wuhan, Hubei, China
Height	5' 7.75in (1.72 m)
Weight	137 lbs. (62 kg)
Turned Pro	1999
Plays	Right (two-handed backhand)
Career Prize Money	$722,562
Singles
Career record:	234-69
Career titles:	1 WTA, 19 ITF titles
Highest ranking:	No. 20 (August 14, 2006)
Grand Slam results
Australian Open	3r (2005)
French Open	3r (2006)
Wimbledon	QF (2006)
U.S. Open	4r (2006)
Doubles
Career record:	113-37
Career titles:	2 WTA, 16 ITF titles
Highest ranking:	No. 54 (July 24, 2006)
Infobox last updated on: September 16, 2006.

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Li, for the fencer named Li Na see Li Na (fencer)

Li Na (Chinese: 李娜, Lǐ Nà) (born February 26, 1982, Wuhan, Hubei, China), is a professional women's tennis player from the People's Republic of China.

Contents 1 Career summary 2 2000-2003 3 2004 4 2005 5 2006 6 WTA Titles 6.1 Singles (20) 6.2 Singles finalist (2) 6.3 Doubles (2 WTA, 16 ITF) 7 External link

[edit] Career summary

Between 1999 and 2004, Li won 20 women's singles titles: 19 ITF events and one—the first ever won by a Chinese woman—on the WTA Tour.

Li also frequently enters doubles tournaments at events alongside singles, and has won two WTA doubles titles and 16 further ITF doubles events. Her early success in doubles came mostly with Ting Li; since, her partners have varied, most notably with Nicole Pratt and Jelena Jankovic.

On June 19th, 2006, Li became the first Chinese woman to be ranked within the WTA top 30 at No. 30. Two months later, on August 14, 2006, Li entered the top 20 for the first time at No. 20.

[edit] 2000-2003

Li turned professional in 1999, and won three of her first four singles tournaments she entered on the ITF Circuit. She also won all seven of the first seven ITF doubles tournaments she entered.

In 2000, she won a total of 52 singles matches on the ITF circuit, more than any other player, notching another eight tournament titles and an unbroken run of four successive $10,000 tournament wins in March and April.

In June, after Li's world ranking had risen to No. 136 on the strength of her ITF performances alone, she gained direct entry into her first WTA Tour event at Tashkent. Li lost her first WTA singles match to Anna Zaporozhanova 0-6 6-4 6-1, but she captured the women's doubles title at Tashkent with Li Ting against Zaporozhanova and Iroda Tulyaganova.

By the end of 2000, Li had won four WTA singles matches, in addition to gaining her 11th ITF title. She also won seven more ITF doubles events, six of them with Li Ting.

Li was mostly absent from the tour in 2001. She won two ITF singles tournaments, but played only one further match for the rest of the season. Her ranking fell to No. 303 by year's end.

In 2002, she came through qualifying to win her first $75,000 singles tournament at Midland, USA in February, defeating Laura Granville, Tatiana Perebiynis and Mashona Washington en route to the title, the 14th of her career. But she then played just one further match before a 25 month absence from the circuit. Sources vary what the causes of this absence were, with some citing "health reasons," but others asserted that she decided to take a break from professional tennis to study at university.

[edit] 2004

In May 2004 she returned to the circuit unranked, and won 26 successive matches to notch three further ITF tournament victories and another $50,000 title. Li's winning streak was snapped by Evgenia Linetskaya in the semifinal of the Bronx tournament in August.

That September, she lost in the final of a $25,000 tournament to compatriot Zheng Jie. Li received a wildcard for the WTA-level Beijing tournament, where she defeated Antonella Serra Zanetti, Marta Domachowska and Nicole Pratt—losing 6-3 6-7 (6) 6-7 (3) to Svetlana Kuznetsova, who afterwards praised Li, stating that she had felt as though she was up against a top-five player.

Following her Beijing performance, Li qualified for another WTA tournament, Guangzhou, defeating Vera Dushevina, Jelena Jankovic, Kristina Brandi and Ting Li to reach the final, where she overcame Martina Sucha 6-3 6-4 to claim her first WTA title; in so doing, she became the first Chinese woman to win a WTA event. On October 4, 2004, she broke into the WTA Top 100 for the first time.

Li reached No. 80 in the world by the season's end, a year in which she won 51 singles matches and lost just four.

[edit] 2005

In 2005, Li dropped the ITF circuit and focused solely on the WTA. At her Grand Slam debut with the Australian Open, she reached the third round, losing to Maria Sharapova 0-6 2-6.

In early February, she reached the quarterfinal at Hyderabad, losing to Maria Kirilenko.

Li reached the final at Estoril in late April, defeating Stephanie Cohen-Aloro, Nicole Pratt, Dally Randriantefy and Dinara Safina to reach her second WTA Tour final, losing to Lucie Safarova 7-6(4) 4-6 3-6.

Li retired at Rabat in May with a right ankle sprain from her semifinal match against Zheng Jie with the score at 3-3. Reaching the semis propelled her to a career high ranking of No. 33, but the injury kept her out of action for the following three months, after which she had mixed results, and didn't defend her title at Guangzhou, losing in the quarters to Yan Zi. Li ended 2005 ranked #56.

[edit] 2006

In January, she entered the Australian Open and faced Serena Williams in the first round, losing 3-6 7-6 2-6.

By the end of February, her ranking had dropped to #71.

At the Qatar Total Open Li faced Daniela Hantuchova in the second round, who was up 6-4, 5-1; but Li saved match points and broke back twice for a second set tiebreak, which she won, defeating Hantuchova 4-6 7-6 (5) 6-1. Li then faced Nadia Petrova in the third round and lost 4-6 4-6.

At Indian Wells, Li reached the fourth round, losing to world #8 Elena Dementieva 3-6 2-6. She rose back to #60 in the world afterwards.

At Estoril in May, Li Na defended her previous year's finals performance, losing for the fourth time to Jie Zheng, retiring at 7-6 (5) 5-7.

Following Estoril, Li defeated Patty Schnyder for the first time in the quarterfinals at the Qatar Total German Open with a muscle sprain after the match, losing to Nadia Petrova in the semis 1-6 0-6. Li's ranking following the success at that Tier I event rose to #39.

At her first appearance at Roland Garros, Li reached the third round, losing to finalist Svetlana Kuznetsova. Her ranking increased to #32. Following the clay season, she reached the third round at the DFS Classic tournament on grass; her ranking increased to #30, the highest a Chinese woman had ever been prior.

At Wimbledon, ranked 30th, she was seeded 27th after a few withdrawals, and became the first Chinese woman to be seeded for entry into a Grand Slam tournament. Li defeated Svetlana Kuznetsova in the third round and Nicole Vaidisova in the fourth, being the first Chinese woman to reach a quarterfinal at a Grand Slam. Li lost in the quarters against Kim Clijsters 4-6 5-7, despite serving for the second set at 5-2.

At the US Open she reached the fourth round, beating Mary Pierce 4-6 6-0 6-0, before losing to the eventual champion Maria Sharapova, 4-6 2-6.

[edit] WTA Titles

[edit] Singles (20)

Legend (Singles)

Grand Slam (0)

Tour Championships (0)

Tier I Event (0)

Tier II Event (0)

Tier III Event (1)

Tier IV Event (0)

ITF Circuit (19)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	June 13, 1999	Shenzen, China	Hard	Yang-Jin Chung	6-2 6-3
2.	June 20, 1999	Shenzen, China	Hard	Yang-Jin Chung	6-0 6-0
3.	August 29, 1999	Westende, Belgium	Clay	Daphne Van De Zande	6-3 6-1
4.	January 23, 2000	Boca Raton, Florida	Hard	Sandra Cacic	6-4 6-3
5.	March 26, 2000	Nanjing, China	Hard	Marie-Eve Pelletier	7-6 6-2
6.	April 2, 2000	Nanjing, China	Hard	Ding Ding	6-2 6-2
7.	April 16, 2000	Shenyang, China	Hard	Tian Tian Sun	6-0 6-4
8.	April 23, 2000	Dalian, China	Hard	Li Ling Chen	6-4 6-4
9.	May 14, 2000	Seoul, South Korea	Clay	Eun-Ha Kim	6-3 7-6
10.	May 28, 2000	Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam	Hard	Wynne Prakusya	6-1 6-2
11.	July 9, 2000	Civitanova, Italy	Clay	Emmanuelle Gagliardi	6-3 4-6 7-6
12.	April 22, 2001	Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam	Hard	Roberta Vinci	6-4 7-5
13.	July 29, 2001	Guangzhou, China	Hard	Nan Nan Liu	6-1 6-2
14.	February 10, 2002	Midland, USA	Hard Indoors	Mashona Washington	6-1 6-2
15.	May 23, 2004	Beijing, China	Hard	Seiko Okamoto	6-4 6-4
16.	May 30, 2004	Tongliao, China	Hard	Bahia Mouhtassine	6-4 2-6 7-6
17.	June 6, 2004	Wulanhaote, China	Hard	Nan Nan Liu	6-0 6-0
18.	June 13, 2004	Beijing, China	Hard Indoors	Suchanun Viratprasert	6-2 6-4
19.	October 3, 2004	Guangzhou, China	Hard	Martina Sucha	6-3 6-4
20.	October 31, 2004	Shenzen, China	Hard	Tian Tian Sun	6-3 4-6 6-2

[edit] Singles finalist (2)

• 2005: Estoril (lost to Lucie Safarova)
• 2006: Estoril (lost to Jie Zheng)

[edit] Doubles (2 WTA, 16 ITF)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Partnering	Opponents in the final	Score
1.	June 18, 2000	Tashkent, Uzbekistan	Hard	Li Ting	Iroda Tulyaganova & Anna Zaporozhanova	3-6, 6-2, 6-4
2.	June 18, 2006	Birmingham, Great Britain	Grass	Jelena Jankovic	Jill Craybas & Liezel Huber	6-2 6-4

[edit] External link

• WTA Tour profile for Li Na

Data sources: *ITF Tennis; WTA Tour; China Through A Lens; [1] (contemporary article about match in which Kuznetsova nearly lost to Li Na, citing Kuznetsova's comments about her and also that Li Na's two-year absence from competition in her early 20s was for health reasons).

NB: None of the above-linked external web sources alone provided complete results and ranking data, but they proved mutually complementary.

Women's Tennis Association | Top ten Asian female tennis players at the end of 2006
1. Shahar Pe'er (Israel) (20) | 2. Na Li (China) (21) | 3. Ai Sugiyama (Japan) (26) 4. Jie Zheng (China) (33) | 5. Shuai Peng (China) (55) | 6. Aiko Nakamura (Japan) (57) 7. Anna Smashnova (Israel) (63) | 8. Sania Mirza (India) (55) 9. Tamarine Tanasugarn (Thailand) (70) | 10. Yung-Jan Chan (Chinese Taipei) (74)