Li Na has been defeated by Bethanie Mattek-Sands of USA in the second round of the ongoing French Open. Sands won the match in three sets by 5-7, 6-3, 6-2.

Sands had entered the match as an underdog, but, she didn’t show any signs of tentativeness. She looked confident right from the very beginning and played some quality tennis to surprise her Chinese opponent.

This was the third match between these two players and Sands defeated Li for the first time.

In the post match interview, Sands said, “This is one of my greatest victories. Li is a great player and I knew that I would have to play out of my skins to defeat her. I tried to play to my strengths and that worked for me.”

In the first set, Li started aggressively. With the help of breakthroughs in the 2^nd and the 4^th game, she took a lead of 4-0. But, she dropped her serve twice consecutively after that and the scores got equalized at 4-4 at the end of the 8^th game.

The next two games went with the serve and the scores were still levelled. In the 11^th game, Li broke Sands’ serve for the third time in the set which gave her a lead of 6-5. The Chinese player served out the 12^th game and won the first set by 7-5.

In the second set, Sands’ performance improved. The American player broke her opponent’s serve in the 2^nd game and then, by the virtue of a serve hold in the next game, she enhanced her lead to 3-0.

Sands dropped her serve in the 7^th game and her lead got reduced to 4-3, but, she made up for that immediately by breaking Li’s serve in the 8^th game.

Li needed to break Sands’ serve in the 9^th game to take the set further, but, she couldn’t do that. The American player served it out quite easily and won the set.

In the decider, Sands started in a belligerent way. She broke Li’s serve in the 1^st, 3^rd and 5^th game and won the first five games successively. She had the opportunity to register a bagel by serving out the 6^th game. But, that didn’t happen.

Li got a breakthrough in the 6^th game and then, won her next service game to decrease Sands’ lead to 2-5. But, that was too little, too late. Sands held her serve in the 8^th game to clinch the decider.

In the next round, Sands will face Paula Ormaechea of Argentina.

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Li Na has said that she is glad that her success in tennis has inspired the young girls in China to be a professional tennis player.

China hasn’t produced too many great tennis players over the years and that’s why, the young kids in China were not that much attracted towards this sport in the past. But, Li Na’s success in professional circuit has changed that scenario completely. Now, the Chinese kids especially girls want to make their careers in tennis.

When asked about that, Li Na said, “It’s really great to see the young girls from China being attracted towards tennis. It wasn’t the same in the past. People didn’t have this sort of interest in tennis earlier. Very few people used to watch this sport. But, the popularity has increased in the recent years.”

“I really feel proud that my success has motivated the kids to try and become a professional tennis player.”

“When I was a kid, I didn’t have any idea what was going on in tennis all over the world. My aim was just to become the champion at national level. The facilities were very poor at that time.”

“Now, things have changed. Quite a few coaching centres and academies have been opened.”

When asked about the tennis talent in China, Li said, “We have a lot of talented players at the junior level. I got the chance to meet a few of them a couple of months back and they are really full of talent. They are being groomed well under world class coaches and hopefully, they will start turning it on in professional circuit in a few years.”

Recently, Li has been included in the list of top 100 influential persons in the world by the Time magazine. The magazine also has Li’s photo on cover page. When asked about that, Li said, “It’s so nice of them that they included me in that list. It’s really an honour. I want to thank them for that.”

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Li Na has defeated Kiki Bertens of Holland in the second round of the Sony Open. Li won the match in the straight sets by 6-3, 6-1.

This was Li’s first match after losing the final match of the Australian Open against Victoria Azarenka.

After the match, Li said, “I just tried to stick to the basics and that worked. This was my first match in the last one and half months. It was nice to secure a straight set win in my comeback match.”

“I was overwhelmed to see so many fans turning up to cheer for me. Their support certainly helped me.”

When asked about the condition of her ankle which she had injured in the Australian Open final, Li said, “It’s alright now. I haven’t felt pain since the last two weeks and it is also not obstructing me from moving fluently.”

Li had made a great start to the ongoing season by winning the Shenzhen Open in front of her home crowd. She had defeated Klara Zakopalova of Czech Republic in the final of that event. That was the 7^th WTA title won by her.

Her performance was fine in the Apia International Sydney tennis tournament as well. She cruised into the final 4 of that tournament where she had to face the no. 4 player in the world Agnieszka Radwanska. She couldn’t get better of the Polish superstar and missed the opportunity of starting the season with two consecutive title victories.

She went one step further in the Australian Open and reached the finals there, but, again, she couldn’t hold her nerve in the big match and lost the final.

Li has played 17 matches in the season so far. She has won 15 out of them and has lost only two.

Tags: Na