2013 Li Na tennis season

This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please help improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (September 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

2013 Li Na tennis season

Singles
Season record	44–14 (75.86%)
Calendar titles	1
Current ranking	No. 3
Ranking change from previous year	4
Grand Slam & significant results
Australian Open	F
French Open	2R
Wimbledon	QF
US Open	SF
Last updated on: 28 October 2013.

The 2013 Li Na tennis season officially began on 31 December with the start of the 2013 WTA Tour at the first edition of the 2013 Shenzhen Open.

Yearly summary[edit]

Early hard court season and Australian Open[edit]

Shenzhen Open[edit]

Li Na started her season strongly by participating the inaugural Shenzhen Open in her home country. Defeating Mandy Minella, Julia Cohen, Bojana Jovanovski and country woman Peng Shuai en route, Li advanced to her first final of the year against fifth seed Klára Zakopalová. After splitting the first two sets, the deciding set was a tight affair, but Li broke her opponent's last service game to win the match. It was Li's first title of the year and seventh overall.

Apia International[edit]

Li then competed in Sydney in preparation for the Australian Open. On her road to the semifinals, Li defeated rising star Christina McHale, qualifier Ayumi Morita and another American prodigy Madison Keys, amassing a perfect 8–0 this season. In the semifinal Li faced Agnieszka Radwańska and went on to lose in straight sets. Radwańska later won the title.

Australian Open[edit]

Entering the first Grand Slam of the year, Li defeated young players Sesil Karatantcheva, Olga Govortsova, Sorana Cîrstea and Julia Görges en route to set up a quarter final match between her tour rivalry and friend Agnieszka Radwańska. Li took full advantage of her well-rounded performance, ending the Pole's Australian run in straight sets. In the semifinals, world No. 2 Maria Sharapova won only 4 games in a lopsided victory for Li. This would be Li's third Major final in her career .

Li's opponent in the final was defending champion Victoria Azarenka. The pair entered the final with 1 Major victory each. Li won the first set but fell twice in the second set. She twisted her left ankle and also hit her head on the court. Li, though injured, continued the match and was defeated by Azarenka in three sets. Li received a huge applause from the audience while giving her speech in the ceremony later that night.

Because of her left ankle injury, Li withdrew from 2013 Qatar Total Open, 2013 Dubai Tennis Championships and 2013 BNP Paribas Open. She continued her season in 2013 Sony Open Tennis in March.

Sony Open Tennis[edit]

After not participating any tour events for 2 months, Li returned to the American hard court season in Miami. As the fifth seed of the event

Clay court season and French Open[edit]

Porsche Tennis Grand Prix[edit]

Mutua Madrid Open[edit]

Internazionali BNL d'Italia[edit]

French Open[edit]

Grass court season and Wimbledon[edit]

Aegon International[edit]

Wimbledon[edit]

US Open Series and US Open[edit]

Rogers Cup[edit]

In her first match since Wimbledon, she beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in two easy sets. In the third round Li faced Ana Ivanovic. The two traded sets but in the final set in went to a tiebreak, and Li earned a hard-fought victory. Li then defeated Dominika Cibulková and proceeded to the semifinal where she lost to Sorana Cîrstea in two sets.

Western & Southern Open[edit]

Li was the defending champion, and went on to make the semifinals. She lost to Serena Williams, 7–5 7–5, and double faulted to lose both sets.

US Open[edit]

Asian hard court season and Year-end Championships[edit]

China Open[edit]

WTA Championships[edit]

Li was drawn in the White group along with Victoria Azarenka, Sara Errani and Jelena Janković. She opened her campaign with a straight set win over Errani, improving to 6–0 in career head-to-head meetings against her. She was behind 3–1 in the second set before winning the next four games. She twice served for the match, wasting a match point at 5–3, and dropped serve on both occasions. Trailing 3–1 in the tiebreaker, Li won the next five points and converted her third match point when Errani dumped a forehand into the net. She emerged victorious against Janković in three topsy-turvy sets. In her final round robin match against Azarenka, she stormed out to a 4–2 lead before Azarenka suffered a lower back injury, allowing Li to win in two easy sets. She finished the match with an impressive +20 winner to error differential (28 to 8). The win meant she advanced to the semifinals for the first time with a 3–0 round robin record. She secured a career-high ranking of world No. 3 by besting Petra Kvitová in the semifinals, the highest ranking an Asian player, male or female, has ever achieved. In the final she made a strong start, blasting 10 winners en route to winning the first set against Serena Williams, but ran out of gas at 3–3 in the second set, losing nine games in a row to lose the championship.

All matches[edit]

Singles matches[edit]

Tournament	Match #	Round	Opponent	Rank	Result	Score
Shenzhen Open Shenzhen, China WTA International Hard, outdoor 31 December 2012 – 6 January 2013	1	1R	Mandy Minella	#77	Win	6–4, 6–0
	2	2R	Julia Cohen	#129	Win	6–3, 6–4
	3	QF	Bojana Jovanovski	#56	Win	6–3, 6–3
	4	SF	Peng Shuai	#40	Win	6–4, 6–0
	5	F	Klára Zakopalová	#28	Win	6–3, 1–6, 7–5
Apia International Sydney, Australia WTA Premier Hard, outdoor 7–13 January 2013	6	1R	Christina McHale	#36	Win	7–6(7–2), 7–5
	7	2R	Ayumi Morita	#81	Win	6–1, 6–0
	8	QF	Madison Keys	#135	Win	4–6, 7–6(7–2), 6–2
	9	SF	Agnieszka Radwańska	#4	Loss	4–6, 3–6
Australian Open Melbourne, Australia Grand Slam Hard, outdoor 14–27 January 2013	10	1R	Sesil Karatantcheva	#113	Win	6–1, 6–3
	11	2R	Olga Govortsova	#58	Win	6–2, 7–5
	12	3R	Sorana Cîrstea	#28	Win	6–4, 6–1
	13	4R	Julia Görges	#18	Win	7–6(8–6), 6–1
	14	QF	Agnieszka Radwańska	#4	Win	7–5, 6–3
	15	SF	Maria Sharapova	#2	Win	6–2, 6–2
	16	F	Victoria Azarenka	#1	Loss	6–4, 4–6, 3–6
Qatar Total Open Doha, Qatar WTA Premier 5 Hard, outdoor 11–17 February 2013	Withdrew
Dubai Tennis Championships Dubai, United Arab Emirates WTA Premier Hard, outdoor 18–24 February 2013	Withdrew
BNP Paribas Open Indian Wells, United States WTA Premier Mandatory Hard, outdoor 4–17 March 2013	Withdrew
Sony Open Tennis Miami, United States WTA Premier Mandatory Hard, outdoor 18–31 March 2013	–	1R	Bye
	17	2R	Kiki Bertens	#42	Win	6–3, 6–1
	18	3R	Varvara Lepchenko	#29	Win	6–2, 6–4
	19	4R	Garbiñe Muguruza	#73	Win	7–6(8–6), 6–2
	20	QF	Serena Williams	#1	Loss	3–6, 6–7(5–7)
Porsche Tennis Grand Prix Stuttgart, Germany WTA Premier Clay, indoor 22–28 April 2013	–	1R	Bye
	21	2R	Mirjana Lučić-Baroni	#103	Win	6–1, 6–2
	22	QF	Petra Kvitová	#8	Win	6–3, 7–5
	23	SF	Bethanie Mattek-Sands	#104	Win	6–4, 6–3
	24	F	Maria Sharapova	#2	Loss	4–6, 3–6
Mutua Madrid Open Madrid, Spain WTA Premier Mandatory Clay, outdoor 6–12 May 2013	25	1R	Madison Keys	#62	Loss	3–6, 2–6
Internazionali BNL d'Italia Rome, Italy WTA Premier 5 Clay, outdoor 13–19 May 2013	–	1R	Bye
	26	2R	Zheng Jie	#50	Win	6–3, 6–1
	27	3R	Jelena Janković	#18	Loss	6–7(2–7), 5–7
French Open Paris, France Grand Slam Clay, outdoor 26–9 June 2013	28	1R	Anabel Medina Garrigues	#68	Win	6–3, 6–4
	29	2R	Bethanie Mattek-Sands	#62	Loss	7–5, 3–6, 2–6
Aegon International Eastbourne, United Kingdom WTA Premier Grass, outdoor 17–22 June 2013	30	1R	Alizé Cornet	#30	Win	6–2, 6–4
	–	2R	Marion Bartoli	#15	Walkover	N/A
	31	QF	Elena Vesnina	#36	Loss	6–7(4–7), 3–6
Wimbledon Championships London, United Kingdom Grand Slam Grass, outdoor 24 June – 7 July 2013	32	1R	Michaëlla Krajicek	#575	Win	6–1, 6–1
	33	2R	Simona Halep	#43	Win	6–2, 1–6, 6–0
	34	3R	Klára Zakopalová	#32	Win	4–6, 6–0, 8–6
	35	4R	Roberta Vinci	#11	Win	6–2, 6–0
	36	QF	Agnieszka Radwańska	#4	Loss	6–7(5–7), 6–4, 2–6
Rogers Cup Toronto, Canada WTA Premier 5 Hard, outdoor 5–11 August 2013	–	1R	Bye
	37	2R	Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova	#31	Win	6–1, 6–4
	38	3R	Ana Ivanovic	#15	Win	3–6, 6–1, 7–6(7–5)
	39	QF	Dominika Cibulková	#20	Win	7–6(7–1), 6–2
	40	SF	Sorana Cîrstea	#27	Loss	1–6, 6–7(5–7)
Western & Southern Open Cincinnati, United States WTA Premier 5 Hard, outdoor 12–19 August 2013	–	1R	Bye
	41	2R	Lauren Davis	#76	Win	4–6, 6–1, 6–1
	42	3R	Angelique Kerber	#8	Win	6–4, 6–4
	–	QF	Agnieszka Radwańska	#4	Walkover	N/A
	43	SF	Serena Williams	#1	Loss	5–7, 5–7
US Open New York City, United States Grand Slam Hard, outdoor 26 August – 9 September 2013	44	1R	Olga Govortsova	#88	Win	6–2, 6–2
	45	2R	Sofia Arvidsson	#100	Win	6–2, 6–2
	46	3R	Laura Robson	#32	Win	6–2, 7–5
	47	4R	Jelena Janković	#12	Win	6–3, 6–0
	48	QF	Ekaterina Makarova	#24	Win	6–4, 6–7(5–7), 6–2
	49	SF	Serena Williams	#1	Loss	0–6, 3–6
China Open Beijing, China WTA Premier Mandatory Hard, outdoor 28 September – 6 October 2013	50	1R	Daniela Hantuchová	#31	Win	6–0, 6–4
	51	2R	Bojana Jovanovski	#39	Win	6–0, 6–1
	52	3R	Sabine Lisicki	#16	Win	7–5, 6–4
	53	QF	Petra Kvitová	#7	Loss	6–4, 2–6, 4–6
WTA Tour Championships Istanbul, Turkey WTA Tour Championships Hard, indoor 21–27 October 2013	54	RR	Sara Errani	#7	Win	6–3, 7–6(7–5)
	55	RR	Jelena Janković	#8	Win	6–3, 2–6, 6–3
	56	RR	Victoria Azarenka	#2	Win	6–2, 6–1
	57	SF	Petra Kvitová	#6	Win	6–4, 6–2
	58	F	Serena Williams	#1	Loss	6–2, 3–6, 0–6

Tournament schedule[edit]

Singles schedule[edit]

Li Na's 2013 singles tournament schedule is as follows:

Yearly records[edit]

Head-to-head matchups[edit]

Bold indicates that the player was in the Top 10, italics denotes that the player was in the Top 20 (at the time of the match being played). This list is ordered by number of wins to number of losses in chronological order played.

Finals[edit]

Singles: 4 (1–3)[edit]

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent	Score
Winner	7.	6 January 2013	Shenzhen, China	Hard	Klára Zakopalová	6–3, 1–6, 7–5
Runner-up	9.	26 January 2013	Melbourne, Australia	Hard	Victoria Azarenka	6–4, 4–6, 4–6
Runner-up	10.	28 April 2013	Stuttgart, Germany	Clay (i)	Maria Sharapova	4–6, 3–6
Runner-up	11.	27 October 2013	Istanbul, Turkey	Hard (i)	Serena Williams	6–2, 3–6, 0–6

Earnings[edit]

Figures in United States dollars (USD) unless noted.

See also[edit]

• 2013 Victoria Azarenka tennis season
• 2013 Serena Williams tennis season
• 2013 WTA Tour

References[edit]