Rejuvenated Li wins comeback title, Zheng/Yan fall at Gold Coast
Updated: 2008-01-05 20:29
CANBERRA - Having missed six months from the Tour, it didn't take the China's best ranked Li Na long to return to the top of her game.
 China's Li Na plays a forehand return against Patty Schnyder of Switzerland at the Australian Women's Hardcourt Championships on the Gold Coast yesterday. Li won 3-6, 6-3, 7-5. [Shanghai Daily] |
The Chinese No.1 won her comeback event at the Australian women's hard court tennis championships at Gold Coast after another gritty 2-1 win over Belarus' Victoria Azarenka in the final on Saturday.
The 25-year-old, playing her first tournament in six months due to injury, took two hours and 11 minutes to rally past Azarenka 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, notching up her first WTA title in three years and the second in career, adding to her 2004 victory in China's Guangzhou.
She also took home the top prize of US$28,000.
En route to the championship match, Li upset Czech's top seed Nicole Vaidisova in the quarterfinals and fourth-seeded Patty Schnyder of Switzerland in the semifinals, showing that the China's most talented player is ready to make more splash in the year of 2008.
In the opening set, Azarenka called a medical time-out for a right upper thigh injury while leading 4-3, which did not appear to affect her movement. Azarenka won the first set at 6-4 with two breaks against just one from Li.
After tying the match at 6-3 in the second set, Li appeared to find rhythm and in the deciding set at 4-4, she broke Azarenka's service in the ninth game. Li then held service in the next game, winning on her first match point.
Li last played in Birmingham, England in June, but suffered a rib injury that saw her sit out the rest of 2007. A quarterfinalist at Wimbledon in 2006, she hopes to represent China at the Beijing Olympics this summer.
Li's compatriots Zheng Jie and Yan Zi, the 2006 Australian Open and Wimbledon champs, had to concede a straight sets loss to Hungary's Agnes Szavay and Russian Dinara Safina in the following women's doubles final.
The international duo seemed not to be stretched to the very limits by the Chinese team, converting on six out of nine breaking points before closing out the 50-minute match.
Zheng/Yan only notched up three breaking point opportunities and managed to take one of them.
But the comeback runners-up finish was good enough for Zheng, who was in the same boat as Li, being sidelined for more than half a year due to an ankle injury dating back to last season's French Open.
They will continue their warm-up for the upcoming Australian Open in next week's international women's tennis championships in Sydney.
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