Li Na to plan for future after getting stunned at the French Open – Tennis News
China’s top player, Li Na, has said that she wants to take a lay-off from professional tennis and will decide in the coming days if she will play in Birmingham next week or head back to her home country.
The Chinese star was upset by Kazakhstan’s unseeded player, Yaroslava Shvedova, in the fourth round of the French Open in Paris on Tuesday. She had won the first set but played poorly after that to lose 12 of the following 14 games
and went down 6-3, 2-6, 0-6.
She said, talking to the reporters during a press conference, "I will take some days off to totally forget tennis, then try to come back next week. Right now I have not decided if I am staying here to play Birmingham or go back
to China to recover.”
Li was defending her title, as she had defeated Francesca Schiavone of Italy in straight sets 6-4 7-6(0) in last year’s French Open final to become the first player, male or female, from Asia to win Grand Slam singles title.
The Chinese player became one of the biggest sporting stars of her country and gained lots of praise after achieving that feat. Many young Chinese girls were inspired from their new heroine and they started to play tennis to follow
in her footsteps.
After Li’s latest loss, her Chinese fans got hugely disappointed and flooded China’s most famous twitter like social website, Sina Weibo, with 11 thousand messages. Most of them thrashed their Chinese star but some also consoled
her.
Li added, giving answers to media person’s tough questions, "I lost one match so don't try to put me down. This is tennis. I will try to find the reason why I lost."
Although, the Chinese contender had failed to win even a single title on the WTA Tour after winning 2011 Roland Garros but she entered the list of this year’s favourite players by performing brilliantly in the last tournament before
the start of the second Grand Slam of the season.
Li had advanced to the Internazionali BNL d’Italia final and was just a couple of points away from the win but could not give final touches, losing it in three sets 4-6 6-4 7-6(5).
The Chinese player had lost in the quarter-finals of the other two clay court events, going down at the hands of Agnieszka Radwanska and Victoria Azarenka at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix and Mutua Madrid Open respectively.
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