Li Na (李娜) just made history in clinching the trophy of French Tennis Open at Roland Garros. I watched the match on Saturday. She did a convincing win by a strong baseline drives, both forehand & backhand. The key points are the depth & the placement of balls. The opponent Francesca Schiavone equipped various strokes & spins that were also very impressive. Ultimately the consistency of Li Na's baseline drives prevailed. This is the first Chinese woman has ever achieved the feat since the tennis open era. It was reported that more than 60 million people watched this match in China. So far it seems the women in China perform much better than their male counterpart in the field of sport. There is no reasonable explanation & I haven't heard anyone tries to explain it.
Li Na uses two hands in her backhand drive. She seldom uses under-spin or slices in both forehand and backhand. This creates powerful hit & deep ball placement. Of course she sometime hits the ball out of the baseline. But overall, the high percentage of the good balls (consistency) determines the outcome of the match.
One area Li Na can improve is the serving speed. Coupled with her current >75% of first-serve in, if she can serve the balls with greater than 100 mph speed, she is going to be a formidable opponent to reckon with. However, time is not on her side. She is 29 now & we don't expect her to continue this form for more than five years.
One thing is interesting. Before Bjorn Borg & Jimmy Conner showed up in the horizon in the decade of 1970, it was rare to see tennis players use two-hand backhand. Especially before 1970, Aussie dominated the tennis circuit & nobody in Australia adopted two-hand backhand. Since 1980, most women adopted two-hand backhand & they started winning. There are pros & cons of two-hand backhand. You can drive the ball harder but you limit your range of reaches. In order to compensate this, the player has to run faster. Roger Federer used to beat Raphel Nadal, but not any more since Nadal makes improvements on serve & running speed. From the view point of health, it seems using two hands must be better. After all, why let one hand idle just to hold the racket. In fact, if you hit one-hand backhand too often, you risk to have tennis arm. Lately Justine Henen announced her retirement due to her right arm problem. Her one-hand backhand is impressive with style & power. But it will not be useful when it gets injured. I played tennis since I came to the US. I played with one-hand backhand for many years. However, I played more often after my retirement, I found that I got tennis elbow. Since last year, I started to adopt two-hand backhand. Now I am able to keep & enjoy the tennis play. I feel better especially that I utilize my left hand more. It is like a balancing diet to make my body more fit. Surprisingly, I found the another Chinese woman, Peng Shuai (彭帥), whose ranking is about 29 in WTA. She adopts two-hand forehand. She is not that strong in body built comparing to Li Na. This makes sense for her to hit the ball with more pace. However, my experience is that it is easier to control the direction & placement with one-hand forehand. So far Peng Shuai may be the one & only one two-hand forehand player in the world.
If you think it is not that hard to get a grand slam of tennis, it is. This reminds me of the Tiger Mom's book "The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother". Amy Chua learned that her younger daughter wanted to pursue tennis instead of violin. Her first thought was that she is not going to get any prize out of tennis. I think she is right on this. Chinese already have 林昭亮,Yo Yo Ma, Lang Lang, Li Yun-Di in the music world. But there is only one Li Na, one & only one Chinese get a Grand Slam in the tennis world. After saying all the above, I have to mention that some wise man used to say: "Life is not that simple. Sometimes, it is the pursuit of something that counts, not necessary what prize it gets ultimately." I hope Amy Chua realizes this & not blindly pursues her prize instead of her kid's endeavor.
PS: In the decade of 1980, there was a Chinese female tennis player, 胡娜 (Hu Na). She defected from China, played in WTA (Women Tennis Association) circuit. She didn't go very far, but did play in the center court of Wimbledon once. She got injured at age 29 & retired. She teaches tennis in Taiwan for several years. I remember some TV commentators in 1980's used to ask Who? when they saw this Chinese girl. The answer was unanimous Na!
