Li reaches historic Slam final

China’s Li Na beat world number one Caroline Wozniacki 3-6, 7-5, 6-3 in the Australian Open semis Thursday to become the first Asian woman to reach a Grand Slam final. Li courageously saved a match point before clawing her way back into the encounter, her second straight Australian Open semi-final, dashing Wozniacki’s hopes of winning a maiden major title.

The 28-year-old from Wuhan now has a golden opportunity to bring home China’s first Grand Slam singles title, which would be expected to ignite the sport’s popularity in the giant Asian country. Li, China’s number one, fought back from a poor start where she made error after error to give Wozniacki easy points, to gradually overhaul her younger opponent in hot conditions on Rod Laver Arena.

When asked what had inspired her gritty fightback, the crowd favourite laughingly replied: “Prize money”, adding that her husband-coach Jiang Shan’s snoring had disturbed her sleep. “I didn’t have a good night’s sleep last night,” she joked. “My husband (snored). I woke up every hour.”

The 20-year-old Wozniacki had gone into the tournament having to fend off accusations that she wasn’t a deserving world number one because she is yet to win a Grand Slam. But for the first set-and-a-half, as she systematically picked apart Li’s game and broke down the Chinese player’s fierce forehand, she looked every bit the world’s best player. However, just when Li looked down and out, she cut down her error rate and began to find her range with her groundstrokes, before overwhelming a tiring Wozniacki to set up a final against either Kim Clijsters or Vera Zvonareva.

MELBOURNE, AFP