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Li targets place 
in top 5

DUBAI - China’s Li Na has set her sights on breaking into the top five of the women’s game – and staying there – after reaching the Australian Open final.

Li reached a career-high seventh in the WTA rankings after her performance down in Melbourne, where she defeated the eighth (Victoria Azarenka) and first (Caroline Wozniacki) seeds before losing to the recently-crowned world number one Kim Clijsters in a three-set final (3-6, 6-3, 6-3).

Those endeavours have though only served to intensify the 28-year-old’s desire to make further inroads, both through the draws at WTA Tour events and Grand Slams and up the ladies’ ladder overall.

“Hopefully, I can be in the top five,” said Li, who highlighted an older, shrewder mind as the key to achieving such progression. “I want to focus on every tournament and stay high up there, but – on some days – it depends upon how your body is working.

“My husband travels with me, so it’s a lot easier and – if I have some problem or something – I can talk to him face-to-face instead of over the phone.

“I think I’m a good player, but – sometimes – I forgot how to put the ball on the court. Last year, for example, I didn’t do well in Miami.

“Now, I have more experience and I know what I should do on the court and also the team push me a lot.

“It’s still step-by-step. I mean it’s always easy to say something, it’s tough to do it.”

Li is also keen to consign her exploits Down Under to the history books and the past, with what she does from here naturally now of more importance.

“Now Australia is over, we feel like we just need to forget everything about it and start from zero, like how we were working before that. We now have to start afresh.”

Li also stayed comparatively grounded in the wake of becoming the first-ever Grand Slam singles finalist from her native country, shunning the glow of the limelight to spend some time with her family.

“It was so exciting and I then enjoyed the Chinese New Year,” she explained. “I didn’t think too much about tennis, got back home and enjoyed my time with my family.

“Chinese New Year is important for us as it’s like Christmas in the western world. I didn’t do anything much. I didn’t want to be like: ‘Okay, I need to keep thinking about tennis because, when you are with your family, you need to be there and enjoy the moment.

“With the family, I’m just like a child. They didn’t talk about tennis and they just talk about family.”

Meanwhile, Li revealed the benefits of signing a recent sponsorship deal to endorse Haagen-Daz ice cream, adding: “I can have free ice cream all over the world. I just need to inform them one day before and, if say I’m in Dubai, I can go and have some the very next day.

alex@khaleejtimes.com