Li Na, The Chinese Confounder

I remember watching Li Na on Court One during Eastbourne 2008, an early round match against Nadia Petrova. I didn't know her game very well, and was wondering how, a couple of years earlier, she'd become the first ever Chinese player to reach a Grand Slam quarter final (Wimbledon 2006), and break the world's top 20. After she lost the first set and wasn't making much impact in the second, I texted a colleague to say, "I'm still wondering."
But she hung in there against a dominant Petrova, somehow eeking out the second set on a tie-break. She lost the final set, however, and my impression was of a solid and gritty but relatively unspectacular player.
Today I must eat my words as, at 29 years old, she celebrates becoming the first Asian winner of a Grand Slam singles title.
Her game has been gathering momentum for some time, of course. A couple of months after Eastbourne 2008, she beat Venus Williams in the quarter finals of the Beijing Olympics. And Venus didn't play particularly badly, Li was dominant and aggressive. Winning a medal for her country - at home - proved a step too far, however, as she lost to Dinara Safina in the semi finals, and then to Vera Zvonereva in the Bronze Medal Match. With Elena Dementieva beating Safina to take Gold in the final, it was a clean sweep for the Russians.
There had been a lot of talk, in the few years before the Beijing Olympics, of China being on the verge of making the kind of breakthrough in tennis, particularly on the women's side, comparable to Russia in the mid '00s. It still doesn't look very likely that there can be the sheer number of dominant players in the immediate future when you consider that Li (first Chinese player to reach the top ten, and now top five) and Zheng Jie (semi-finalist at both Wimbledon 2008 and Australian Open 2010) are the only ones from this new generation to have so far made top level impacts in singles. Also, the games of these top contenders can look easy to overpower when compared to the taller, more physically intimidating presences of most of the modern Russians.
But Li Na and Zheng Jie, despite being of smaller stature, can pack mighty punches. And, having gradually developed her game and confidence, Li has, incredibly, looked like the power player in the women's game this last fortnight. She beat hot title contenders Petra Kvitova and Victoria Azarenka in the fourth round and the quarters, before overwhelming Maria Sharapova - a player who has a far better serve and less of the matchplay frailties of many of her fellow Russians - in the semis. Li Na's ability to take the ball early, find the right angles at the right time, and an increasingly confident volley, have swept all before her. And, as she said herself, clay has always been her least best surface!
Defending champion Francesca Schiavone also confounded expectations by reaching the final. She could have won, but didn't manage to produce enough of her best tennis to overcome the formidable challenge Li posed today. I can't help feeling a bit disappointed that 30 year old Schiavone is one of the very few players able to provide old-fashioned flair and compete with modern power in the wake of Henin's departure.
But I can't help but be happy for Li Na. And the fact that such a big part of the world as Asia now has a Grand Slam champion has to be a good thing.