China’s Li storms to Australian Open title

China’s Li Na stormed to her second Grand Slam title on Saturday, battling past underdog Dominika Cibulkova to win the Australian Open and give another huge boost to Asian tennis.

Li’s 2011 French Open victory, the first Grand Slam win by an Asian player, dramatically raised the profile of tennis in China and she has become the figurehead for a push into Asia by women’s tennis.

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 the Cibulkova serve when the Slovak gifted her the game with a double-fault on a second break point.

But Li was unable to ram home the advantage with the Slovak breaking back to force a tiebreak, in which Li finally prevailed with some scintillating winners.