TENNIS WTA Madrid 2014 – Australian Open champion and former French Open champion, Li Na found herself in a bit of a battle in order to get into the quarterfinals. She faced one of the rising stars of the WTA in the form of American Sloane Stephens. Li showed herself to be the more experienced player and took to take the match 2-6 6-3 6-2. Cordell Hackshaw
Interviews, results, order of play and draws of the Mutua Madrid Open
2014 Australian Open champion and former French Open champion, Li Na (2) found herself in a bit of a battle in order to get into the quarterfinals at this year’s Mutua Madrid Open. She faced one of the rising stars of the WTA in the form of American Sloane Stephens (16). It was the first meeting between the two and despite Stephens’ excellent start, Li showed herself to be the more experienced player and took to take the match 2-6 6-3 6-2.
Holding serve after saving a break point, Li seemed to have lost the plot as she leaked errors all over the court, amassing 19 overall in the set compared to just 4 winners. She lost a string of 5 games as Stephens imposed herself on the match and gained confidence with each passing moment. Stephens even had set point on Li’s serve to take the set 6-1. However, Li did well to hold serve for the 2nd time in the set and Stephens closed out it out 6-2 after 37 minutes. What was particularly interesting about the set for Li was that she got a high percentage of first serves at 74%, but only won 52% of those points. Stephens only dropped 3 points on first serve. Li would later speak of this shaky start, “I was feeling, you know, beginning of the match like first two game pretty like normal. But when I have serve like 40 Love after I lose the game, I was think about the game for whole set. So make a lot of error to give her points or give her chance.”
An upset seemed to be on the horizon but it became soon became apparent in the 2nd set that once Li raised her game, Stephens would not be able to hang. On her first break point opportunity of the match, Li capitalized to take a 3-1 lead. Stephens became erratic and despite having 5 break chances in the set, failed to win one including 3 along in the 9th game to stay alive in the set. Nonetheless, Li showed her superior court covering skills and cleaned up her game to take the 2nd set 6-3. The 3rd set was more of the same as Li broke Stephens in the opening service game and never looked back, racing to a 4-0 lead. Stephens was noticeably annoyed with her now sub-par level of play as she had no idea what to do against an in-form Li. She broke Li in the 6th game but was immediately broken at love to give Li the chance to serve out the match 5-2. Li continued her onslaught and closed it out with a backhand winner 2-6 6-3 6-3.
It was not the tidiest of matches for the Chinese but she righted her ship in the end. Despite totaling 46 errors in the match, she only committed 9 of those in the 3rd set. Points won on both the first and second serves significantly improved for Li as she was 60% (1st serve) and 56% (2nd serve) compared to 52% (1st serve) and 38% (2nd serve) in the 1st set. Stephens simply got worst as the match went on with 4 winners and 12 errors in the 3rd set compared to a ratio of 8:8 in the 1st set. Li was still complimentary of her opponent stating that Stephens moved well on the clay court and acknowledged that she was a tough opponent was at one point in the match, the better player. Li will face Maria Sharapova in the next round.
