Wuhan’s favourite daughter was scheduled to stop traffic, literally, on Monday, as part of a tournament promotion in the central Chinese city of almost 11 million people. While the TV cameras rolled, streets were blocked off during the afternoon peak as Li Na played tour guide for her old friend, India’s Sania Mirza.
Among the planned activities were a hit on a mini court and a lesson in cooking hot and dry noodles, a local specialty. Yet the duo’s collective reach on an international scale is almost eye-wateringly large, when one considers their enormous profiles in respective home countries sharing more than a third of the world’s population.
The striking $30 million tennis centre hosting this week’s Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open is, at least symbolically, the house that Li Na built. Or, which her pioneering success helped to inspire and fund, anyway. There remains no more popular figure here in Hubei Province than the megastar mother-of-two, whose appearance at the opening ceremony of the tournament described as her “legacy” was enough to help draw a sellout crowd of 15,000.
Yet the dual Grand Slam champion was never able to contest her hometown event; a chronic knee injury prompting her retirement announcement just 10 days before the inaugural edition in 2014. She remains its “global ambassador”, though, her smiling face on its billboards scattered above freeways and around town.
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“She’s very, very close to the event,’’ said co-tournament director Fabrice Chouquet. “She’s actively helping us to promote the event and to promote it towards the youth, towards the next generation of Wuhanese, the ones that are the future of this city, the ones that are going to use all these new roads and buildings, the infrastructures that are popping up every day.’’
The Asian tennis landscape, too, continues to expand. As recently as 2012, China hosted just two WTA tour events: in Guangzhou and Beijing. There are now 10, continuing the boom inspired by tennis’ Olympic re-entry and Beijing’s hosting gig in 2008.
Yet individual trailblazers are not so much replaced as followed, and Li, as the regions’s first major singles champion, is no different. So if Chinese women’s tennis was in a good place when its champion departed, where is it now?
The Chinese tend to be late tennis bloomers, and the current No.1 is veteran Peng Shuai, the world No.24. There is some encouraging depth, with five players among the top 100 and another five ranked inside 200.
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“It’s doing well by having lots of young upcoming players. You’re seeing that next level coming up,’’ said Chouquet. “You may not have today the superstar that Li Na was, but in every country it’s always very difficult to have a top champion in every generation.’’
Still, Zhang Shuai won her second Guangzhou Open on Sunday, while the younger generation includes 23-year-old Zheng Saisai, world No.57 Wang Qiang and 23-year-olds Zhu Lin and Wang Yafan. Note, too, that although development efforts have long focused on the women, Wu Yibing won the US Open boys’ singles and doubles titles earlier this month in a welcome breakthrough. The best of the junior girls is Xin You Wang, 15, and ranked No.10 on the ITF junior listings.
Yet Li is still the national poster-girl, even in retirement, so just as Melbourne has Rod Laver Arena, and Flushing Meadows’ stadium court is named for Arthur Ashe, what of Wuhan?
“That’s something that we could consider in the future,’’ Chouquet smiles. “But it is a little bit her centre court now, anyway.’’
Linda Pearce is a guest of the Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open.
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