After Victory at Hopman, New Confidence for Li Na – NYTimes.com

PERTH — As Li Na would tell it, making history can be pretty exhausting.  After becoming the first Asian Grand Slam finalist at the 2011 Australian Open in January and doing one better at the very next major tournament by becoming the first to win a Slam at the French Open in June, Li struggled to put together solitary victories, much less the sort of sustained dominance needed to win a tournament. After starting 2011 at 26-8, she managed only a 6-9 record in the second half of the season, finishing the year at the year-end W.T.A. Championships in Istanbul with a particularly hapless 6-1, 6-0 steamrolling at the hands of Samantha Stosur.

But after training in Munich during the ever-so brief tennis off-season, Li Na arrived at the Hyundai Hopman Cup XXIV with her tennis and her effervescent spirit renewed.

Representing China in the country’s first appearance in the unique mixed-doubles-centric tournament, the fifth-ranked Li showed flashes of the sharpness that carried to the podium in her first match of the 2012 calendar, twice winning long streaks of consecutive games on her way to a 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 comeback victory over W.T.A. No. 9 Marion Bartoli of France.

via After Victory at Hopman, New Confidence for Li Na – NYTimes.com.