Li Na officially announced her retirement from professional tennis at 11 am today on her Sina Weibo account. The 32-year-old two-time Grand Slam champion cited knee injuries as the reason.

She doesn’t appear to want to completely leave the sport, though. In her own words:

That I had this very rare opportunity to represent China on the tennis courts, for me there is no higher honor. Through this opportunity I hope to have attracted more people to pay attention to China and Asian tennis. This will also be my life mission going forward.

Li Na became the first Chinese player to win a Grand Slam when she captured the French Open title in 2011. She added a second major championship this January when she won the Australian Open, delighting the Melbourne crowd in the process.

She’ll be okay in her future endeavors, whatever they may be. As the New York Times notes: “In a Forbes listing of the highest-paid athletes this year, Li’s annual earnings of $23.6 million put her second among female athletes.”

The WTA will hold a press conference his Saturday in Beijing and on September 23 in Li’s native Wuhan. An official WTA retirement ceremony is planned for Monday, September 29 in Beijing.

Also see: NY Times Magazine’s profile of her, “Li Na, China’s Tennis Rebel.”

In last year’s Australian Open Final, Li Na repeatedly halted play for the eager crowd of tennis aficionados. Not that they minded. Alongside her game, she endeared herself to the tennis public following a couple of ankle rolls, a clutzy head bang, and her comical approach to a concussion test.

China, your girl is the crowd favourite.

I saw this firsthand yesterday on the Rod Laver Arena concourse as Li Na won her first Australian Open title and her second career Grand Slam, beating 20th-ranked Dominika Cibulkova 7-6 (3), 6-0. (Li moved up one spot in the world rankings as a result, to No. 3.) But the crowd’s admiration was politely expressed, with equal appreciation for Cibulkova, who gutsed out a tight first set playing in her maiden Slam final.

The healthy bunch of Chinese supporters watching in the public “Garden Square” seemed to reflect the stoic-ness of Li’s exterior: not panicking during the tense moments, not overzealous when she cruised toward victory in the second set.

The tennis public in Melbourne loves Li as much for her impressive groundstrokes as her quirky post-match interviews where she regularly details her conflicts with her husband and coach. Luckily, we were treated to a happy speech yesterday, which some observers have called the “best acceptance speech ever.”

She thanked her agent for “make me rich,” but most of her punch lines were reserved for her husband, Jiang Shan (Dennis), who was sporting a Crown Casino baseball cap (perhaps he’ll help spend the $2.31 million purse his wife just received for winning the title).

“Now, of course, my husband, you’re famous in China,” Li said into the dual microphones at centre court. “Thanks him with everything, travelling with me as my hitting partner. (He) fixes my drink, fixes my racquet… So thanks a lot, you’re a nice guy.

“Also, you’re so lucky.”

The couple will take time to celebrate their 8th wedding anniversary on Monday. It should be civil.

Last year, Li Na flirted with the idea of retirement before refocusing on the sport that netted her the 2011 French Open. When she finally does retire, if she isn’t awarded her own sitcom starring alongside Tina Fey, I suppose a cameo on Saturday Night Live should suffice.

Follow Lincoln Daw @linkydaw.

The above was tweeted by Sports Illustrated’s Jon Wertheim a couple of days ago. Take a look at that Rolex ad on the official website of the Australian Open, which reads, “Rolex congratulates Li Na on winning her first Australian Open and second Grand Slam title.”

We hope Li Na doesn’t believe in jinxes, because she plays this afternoon against Dominika Cibulkova for a chance to win her first Australian Open and second Grand Slam title. The game is at 4:30 pm local (China) time. It’ll be on every sports channel.

(H/T WSJ)

The China Open tennis tournament began in Beijing over the weekend, but before the games that counted, there was this, a “Battle of the Sexes” between the world’s top player, Novak Djokovic, and China’s very own Li Na. 

The exhibition itself — just one set — wasn’t particularly newsworthy, with the players exchanging a bunch of volleys, Li Na committing Li Na-like unforced errors, and Novak Djokovic letting a bunch of shots go past him (including at least one serve for an ace). The fans seemed to like it though.

At the end, Djokovic was asked to say a few words, so he said in Chinese, “Hello everyone.” (Raucous cheers.) “I love you guys, I love China.” (Awwww.)

“How was his Chinese?” an interviewer in a black suit asks Li Na.

“He absolutely has the ability to live a while in China,” she replies.

China continues to like this guy.

Speaking Chinese:

There’s a chance you’ve known this for a while, since it was first reported on September 6 (by Indo-Asian News Service, of all places), but Li Na will face Novak Djokovic in a “battle of the sexes” on September 27 to mark the 10th year of the China Open at Beijing’s National Tennis Center. It’s a wonderful little PR stunt, pitting the world’s top-ranked men’s player against the women’s No. 5 playing in her home tournament.

Needless to say, this charity exhibition won’t live up to the original “battle of the sexes,” the sport’s seminal intergender showdown between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in 1973. (Mark Dreyer points out over at The Li-Ning Tower that this year marks the 40th anniversary of that famous match.) But it’s not supposed to. The world’s best men’s player — who has delighted Chinese crowds before — will take on one of China’s most respected — if not officially loved — athletes. Fans are the winner here.

China Daily has this info on how to get tickets:

Fans can log on to t.chinaopen.com.cn or call the 400-707-6666 hotline to buy tickets, which are priced at 198 yuan ($32) and 498 yuan.

Fifth-seeded Li Na, playing with what she called nervous energy, beat 24th seed Russian Ekaterina Makarova 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-2 yesterday to become the first Chinese player to ever reach the semifinals of the US Open at Flushing Meadows.

The 31-year-old has been rolling all tournament, dropping only one set — the 6-7 one vs. Makarova. She now prepares to face depending champion Serena Williams, to whom she’s lost the last seven matches.

Reports WSJ:

[Li] has already entered the record books as the first Chinese player through to an Australian Open final (2011, and again in 2013). In 2011, she became the nation’s first Grand Slam winner, capturing Roland Garros.

“I always try to be the first one,” smiled Li. “I [am] really proud for myself, because is the last Grand Slam… of the year, but I’m still fighting a lot on the court to try [my] best.”

It’s safe to say the aging star will be a sentimental favorite, partly due to recent attention brought about by a long New York Times profile, and partly because we want to believe in the possibility of a last hurrah. Xinhua reports that the crowd “showered her with cheers” after her quarterfinals victory, which is understandable. Everyone gets one more chance to deliver a curtain call.

This isn’t to say Li Na — though she has hinted at it in the past — is done with tennis, but at 31, how many more great runs does she have? China’s greatest ever tennis player will be taking Arthur Ashe Court on Friday, and we’ll be watching.

UPDATE: Li lost in straight sets to Serena, who was dominant.

In an otherwise excellent piece on Chinese tennis star Li Na, Brook Larmer, writing in the New York Times, made one critical error, which Chinese media quickly pointed out. The offending passage originally read:

The note didn’t elaborate on her reasons: the burnout from excessive training, the outrage at her coaches’ attempts to squelch her romance with a male teammate named Jiang Shan, and the debilitating period which the team leader wanted her to play through by taking steroid pills, to which she was allergic.

China Daily retorted with a statement from the Tennis Management Center of General Administration of Sport of China, which denied that Li was forced to take “steroid pills.”

The cynical will snicker about such a swift, seemingly oversensitive response from a Chinese sports governing body to what was essentially a throwaway line in a 5,000-plus-word article. But China’s tennis officials were right to issue a response. Steroid accusations are never taken lightly, in any sport (except maybe American football, where — for the athletes’ sake — I hope all of them are on some sort of performance enhancer), and more vitally — the officers were correct.

The New York Times issued this correction on Wednesday, and appended the change in its piece:

An earlier version of this article misidentified the medication that Li Na felt pressured to take in 2002.  It was hormone medicine used to play through a debilitating period, not steroid pills.  And the article misidentified the person who pressured her to take the medicine.  It was her team leader, not her head coach.

The error was apparently one of mistranslation, reports SCMP:

Reporter Larmer later revealed that the article’s background information had been pieced together from interviews with Li and parts of her Chinese-language biography Fighting Alone. The term “steroid pills” had been a mis-translation of the Chinese term for “hormone medication.”

(Quick aside: what medications are classified as steroids, which are deemed illegal, and why, are actually more arbitrary than it should be. A discussion for another time, another website, possibly.)

The New York Times has officially apologized to Li’s agent, Max Eisenbud.

Eisenbud notified media of the apology in a press conference after Li’s August 28 victory over Sweden’s Sofia Arvidsson in the US Open, Tencent Sports reported. He told reporters that Li was “already in the final stages of her career” and unverified rumours of steroid abuse would not faze her.

“She has already invested a lot in playing tennis for China,” Eisenbud reportedly said. “Please give her more of your attention and encouragement.”

Li Na is currently in the final 16 at the US Open. We are rooting for her, actually, and if you want to do know why… go read Brook Larmer’s article.

A politician, his wife, and a tennis star  join the likes of Jay-Z, Bryan Cranston and Kim Jong-un as the only Chinese citizens on Time’s annual list of 100 most influential people in the world. (Ahem, “world.”) You probably can guess, but the three are Xi Jinping, Peng Liyuan, and Li Na. Here are snippets of their profiles:

On Xi Jinping, by Henry Kissinger:

Xi is convinced his generation’s hardships gave it the strength to face the challenges of adapting China to the consequences of its success. He has put forward a sweeping reform program designed to move millions to the cities, streamline bureaucracy, reorient the economy away from state-owned enterprises and fight corruption.

On Peng Liyuan, by Hannah Beech:

Now her clothes make headlines. While rich Chinese favor Western brands, Peng pointedly wore domestic labels on her tour. She’s bringing glamour to Made in China.

On Li Na, by Chris Evert:

Li Na is a maverick. Who else would stand up to the centralized Chinese sports system as Li did, back in 2008, when she pushed for more control over her career? Li persuaded the Chinese Tennis Association (CTA) to start the “fly alone” policy, which gives players more independence. Now they keep more of their money, giving just a fraction of their earnings to the CTA, compared with the bulk before.

Also making it is Taiwanese American Kai-Fu Lee, who Dai Xu, that crazy Chinese colonel, recently accused of being an American spy. Arianna Huffington thinks Lee’s is a “universal story — of striving for freedom (online and off), of the power of technology to circumvent the status quo and of an individual’s potential to create new opportunities that benefit not only himself and his community but the wider world.” Yup, spy.

(H/T Martin M.)

After winning the first set of the Australian Open final against defending champ and world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka, Li Na rolled her ankle — twice, the second time immediately following a 10-minute fireworks display in honor of Australia Day — before falling in three sets 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.

That Azarenka was on the other end of two medical timeouts was more than a little ironic. In the semifinal against American Sloane Stephens, it was Azarenka’s strategically called medical timeout that incited worldwide accusations of gamesmanship and “bending the rules.” Li Na commented on that situation as well before the finals, saying, “You know, everyone is different. Because for me, I would never use that (medical timeout). But I don’t know how (it) is (with) another athlete or another player because everyone is different. I couldn’t say, ‘Oh, it’s wrong’ or ‘it’s right.’”

Azarenka’s timeout in the semis came after no discernible video evidence of injury, and caused more than a few observers to howl that she was just buying herself a 10-minute break to settle her nerves. Everyone, however, could see Li Na’s injury: slow-motion video of her left ankle rolling was shown on Rod Laver Court’s big screens and every television.

THIS is why we have medical time-outs….

— Jon Wertheim (@jon_wertheim) January 26, 2013

Chinese announcers calling the match handled themselves very professionally. Fast forward to the 113-minute mark in the below video: the female commentator says right away that the 10-minute fireworks break may have caused Li Na to go cold and turn her ankle again. She immediately saw that Li Na also hit her head — a trainer ended up administering a concussion test on the court.

You can relive this bizarre but entertaining match in its entirety on Youku:

Ever since advancing to the 2011 Australian Open final, becoming the first Chinese player to appear in a Grand Slam singles final, Li Na has been somewhat of a media darling in Melbourne. The sixth-seeded Wuhan native beat Agnieszka Radwanska 7-5, 6-3 on Tuesday to advance to the semis against Maria Sharapova, but not before serving up a bit of comedy on the court and the mic. Watch as the 30-year-old explains that serve of hers.

Count USA Today’s Chris Chase, who wrote the following, as smitten.

Unlike most of my blogging brethren, who frequently like to say something “wins” the Internet or is “the greatest thing you’ll ever see,” I try to avoid definitive statements of rapturous praise. I’ll make an exception in this case: Li Na is the best.

Li Na’s hilarious excuse for her horrendous serve (USA Today)