Li Na Back in Top 10 After Making Rogers Cup Final

Comeback Road: Li Na shows some of the grit that won her the French Open last year.

Li Na turned around Sunday’s semifinal match against Lucie Safarova 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 to earn a finals date with Petra Kvitova Monday at Montreal’s Roger’s Cup.

Safarova’s left-handed serve seemed to throw off Li’s return game, then her service game as well. The 16th-seeded Czech appeared ready to close out the match in easy fashion after she sprinted ahead 5-1 in the third set.

That’s when Li seemed to dig in and clean up her errors, causing Safarova to begin feeling her nerves. Li won five straight games to bring the score to 6-5 only to double fault twice before finally finishing off the match.

“This is tennis,” said Li in her startlingly direct English. “You have to put the ball back to the court and over the net. Looks like [it’s] easy but sometimes I couldn’t do it. It’s simple, but sometimes it’s tough to do.”

“Of course, closing (the) match is always a little bit (of a) nervous moment,” Safarova said. “She used that situation to turn it over and then she was serving very well. She just started to play much better until that moment and it just slipped away.”

Regardless of whether Li wins or loses Monday’s final against the 6th-ranked Petrova, she will rise to no. 9 in the WTA rankings from her current 11th place. If Li wins, it will be the first title of 2012 for the 2011 French Open champion. Her ranking had risen to no. 5 after that title but slid as she struggled to regain her focus after becoming one of China’s most popular athletes.

Li was born on February 26, 1982 in Wuhan, China where she still makes her home. She is 5-7 3/4 and weighs 143 pounds. Since turning pro in 1999 Li has won 5 WTA singles titles and 2 doubles titles for total prize money of $7,842,849, not counting her share of the $2-million prize money being disputed at Rogers Cup.