Li Na wins the Australian Open

Li Na has beaten Dominika Cibulkova 7-6 (3), 6-0 to win the Australian Open.

The match started off as nervously as the Major finals do. With $2.3 million in prize money alone and a place in the record books on the line, both women could be excused for missing the lines as the match got underway. It was Li Na, the experienced Roland Garros 2011 Champion, who moved ahead 3-0 by virtue of making less errors than her debutante finalist opponent, and hitting the only two winners of the first twenty minutes, two backhand down the lines, the Chinese’s most effective shot.

Fears that another Major final beatdown was imminent were soon beat down themselves as Cibulkova worked her way into the match. Cutting down on her errors, she clocked into her timing and began to swing with the fearless aggression that had taken her to the final, leveling the match at 3-3.

Cibulkova’s improved game raised Li Na’s level, too. Both women struck the ball hard and free from inhibition, moving each other side to side and stepping into the court whenever the short ball invited them. The fierceness of the rallies was Slam-final worthy, with Li Na hitting 22 errors to her opponents 7. 10 of those were on the return, a shot Li Na struck with venom off some of Cibulkova’s slower serves. Her form on her return game paid off when at 5-5, 30-40, Li Na whacked a forehand return and then teed off again on a short ball to draw an error to take the beak and lead 6-5.

Li Na served for the set but Cibulkova was feeling the return, too, and took the game to deuce. A missed forehand cross court gave Li Na a set point but she could not convert, her favored back down the line missing its mark. Cibulkova kept fighting, hitting a forehand winner off a short ball to earn break point. Cibulkova took control of the rally, taking ball on the rise and hitting deep, getting Ni la on the run and forcing her into error to get the break and the set was to be both deservedly and unfairly decided on the lottery that is the tie-breaker.

And it was Li La who had the winning ticket. The ups and downs of the previous games were banished to experience and she took the mini-break at the first chance, hitting a forehand down the line return for a winner. A backhand down the line winner and she led 2-0. Cibulkova broke back with a forehand down the line winner but surrendered another mini-break as Li Na relentlessly pounded her own forehand until she got the short ball and hit a forehand drive volley winner to lead 3-1. Li Na did not look back, front running to 6-3 where she hit out on her backhand cross-court, getting Cibulkova out of position and forcing an error to take the tiebreaker 7-3.

The momentum her way, Li Na then went on to have her way in the most ruthless possible manner. Winner after winner from inside the court flew from her racket as she soared heights we knew she could reach but which she rarely did on the big stage. Well, tonight the stage was hers and she was only to keen to burst into song, the song of a two time Grand Slam champion. 12 winners and 6 games later, leading 5-0 and returning, she had two championship points.

Cibulkova, overwhelmed but far from over, controlled the first point from inside the baseline, forcing Li Na to hit a forehand long. But saving a second championship point against a woman at the top of her game, proved to be too much for the Slovakian. Li Na meanwhile did the least with the ball she had done all match. Hitting to the center of the court, Li Na set out to play herself into one of the biggest points of her career, an improvement in her game that had had as much to with bringing her to within a point of her second slam as her winning ground-strokes. A recent development that paid off. The Slovakian went for too much, too early, going for a big forehand on her third stroke. The ball missed the line and Li Na was the 2014 Australian Open women’s Champion.

The title was hers but her performance did not stop there. Cracking jokes in the trophy presentation about how nice her husband was and how lucky he was to meet her, Li Na was as much the stand up comedienne as the Grand Slam winner. Should she go about a career change, tennis fans would be as lucky to have an audience with her as they were to be there the night she finally brought the Rod Laver Arena down and the Australian Open trophy home.