Third time lucky
27 Jan 2014 4:05 AM IST
The 31-year-old fourth seed was crowned the Melbourne Park champion on her third attempt after losing in the 2011 and 2013 finals, adding to the French Open title she won three years ago.
In doing so, she became the oldest winner of the women’s title, surpassing Margaret Court who was 30 when she became champion in 1973. The Chinese star also joins an exclusive list of just seven other players to win a Grand Slam at 30-plus, with her name now in the history books alongside greats such as Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert and Serena Williams.
The win pushes her one place higher in the world rankings to three, just 11 points adrift of Victoria Azarenka in second behind Serena Williams. It was a gutsy effort by the Chinese star, who overcame the pressure of having lost twice before while bearing the weight of expectation from her homeland of 1.3 billion people. While the diminutive Cibulkova, nicknamed the "pocket rocket" has been in the best form of her life, Li was the favourite and used her experience to take out the Slovak after a tight first set lasting 70 minutes.
Li got off to the best possible start, going 1-0 up on Cibulkova’s serve but the Slovak faught back in the subsequent games. But at 5-5, Li Na pounced, stroking a sumptuous cross-court backhand for break point. A Cibulkova backhand into the net put Li 6-5 up and serving for the set. But Li was unable to ram home the advantage with the Slovak breaking back to force a tiebreak, in which Li finally prevailed after producing some scintillating winners.
In the second set, Li raced to a 3-0 lead then broke again as Cibulkova ran out of steam. Li won on Cibulkova’s serve when the Slovak sent a forehand long, raising her arms in celebration before climbing into the stands to greet her husband, Jiang Shan, and her coach Carlos Rodriguez.
In doing so, she became the oldest winner of the women’s title, surpassing Margaret Court who was 30 when she became champion in 1973. The Chinese star also joins an exclusive list of just seven other players to win a Grand Slam at 30-plus, with her name now in the history books alongside greats such as Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert and Serena Williams.
The win pushes her one place higher in the world rankings to three, just 11 points adrift of Victoria Azarenka in second behind Serena Williams. It was a gutsy effort by the Chinese star, who overcame the pressure of having lost twice before while bearing the weight of expectation from her homeland of 1.3 billion people. While the diminutive Cibulkova, nicknamed the "pocket rocket" has been in the best form of her life, Li was the favourite and used her experience to take out the Slovak after a tight first set lasting 70 minutes.
Li got off to the best possible start, going 1-0 up on Cibulkova’s serve but the Slovak faught back in the subsequent games. But at 5-5, Li Na pounced, stroking a sumptuous cross-court backhand for break point. A Cibulkova backhand into the net put Li 6-5 up and serving for the set. But Li was unable to ram home the advantage with the Slovak breaking back to force a tiebreak, in which Li finally prevailed after producing some scintillating winners.
In the second set, Li raced to a 3-0 lead then broke again as Cibulkova ran out of steam. Li won on Cibulkova’s serve when the Slovak sent a forehand long, raising her arms in celebration before climbing into the stands to greet her husband, Jiang Shan, and her coach Carlos Rodriguez.
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