Li displeased with federation for playing doubles in London 2012 Olympic Games
Li Na, the number one ranking player on the Chinese women’s tennis squad has lashed out against the country’s tennis federation recently. The reason that caused such a reaction to come from Li is the fact that the federation had given her name in the doubles event of the upcoming London 2012 Olympic Games as well.
Li had no intentions of taking part in the doubles event at the Olympic Games that are scheduled to start from July 27. Li had been interested in focusing all her attention for the singles event for which her name was also sent for the Olympic Games.
Li had no idea that she would be representing her country in the doubles event as well until the International Tennis Federation (ITF) had released the entry list for the Olympics of the women’s singles as well as doubles tennis events.
Li expressed her dissatisfaction with the decision by making the following comments, "Last time I played doubles was during the 2007 Australian Open. So far I have not heard from anyone asking me to play doubles. I hope they could respect athletes more ... the way they handled this makes me uncomfortable. I am not 13-years-old and need a guardian. I am 30 now and all these issues could have been put on the table. If both (parties) are okay, we do it, otherwise we do not.”
Li earned the honour of winning the 2011 French Open championship. By doing so, she became the first Asian player who was able to bag the grand slam championship. Recently, Li was knocked out of the Wimbledon tournament that is currently going on by Sorana Cirstea of Romania. Li had made it till the second round of the tournament.
This is not the first time that Li has entered into a disagreement with the Chinese Tennis Association as in 2009 she had a clash with them about training routines as well as the pay of the players. As a result, Li had distanced herself from the Chinese Tennis Association in order to deal on her own with training as well as the prize money of the wins.
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