The U.S. Open Issue: Li Na, China’s Tennis Rebel

Sim Chi Yin for The New York Times

The patch of Wimbledon grass known as the Graveyard of Champions was supposedly exorcised four years ago, when the blue-blazered gentlemen of the All England Lawn Tennis Club demolished Court 2, built a new grandstand in its place and, in 2011, renamed the haunted space Court 3. But the tennis fans watching the 2013 championships still knew. Li Na, China's tennis rebel, knew, too. This was the same cursed court where top seeds like Pete Sampras and Serena Williams had suffered ignominious defeats, falling to unheralded players in the early rounds. Now Li, the former French Open champion and sixth-ranked player in the world, teetered one game away from a third-round loss to the Czech veteran Klara Zakopalova. "At that moment," she told me later, "I suddenly saw myself with my bags going to the airport. It made my heart ache."

For two hours, Li had struggled against her hard-hitting opponent. Trailing 5-6 in the third set, she walked to the baseline knowing that she had to break serve just to stay alive. Lose the next four points, and she might carry out her pretournament threat to quit the sport she had been forced to start playing nearly a quarter-century ago. Her spring season had been a bruising free fall from the heights of her second Australian Open final in January to her second-round flameout at the French Open in May. Now the graveyard was calling.

As Li crouched at the baseline, the cluster of Chinese fans waving little red flags went still. On the first serve, Li blasted a winner down the line. Five points later, she pounced on her first break-point opportunity, scorching a forehand winner — and letting out a scream — to even the set at 6-all. Two more games, another roar: Li had survived. It was just a third-round match, and she had played erratically. But after her recent run of defeats — marked by what appeared to be a lack of conviction at decisive moments — pulling out this victory felt redemptive. "I fought like mad," she said with a grin. "Winning this match felt as good as getting to a Grand Slam final."

One more obstacle awaited Li that afternoon. Walking into the press room in her sleek white sweatsuit, she looked warily at the assembled Chinese reporters. Her smile was pinched. China's state-run media, which happily extols her victories for bringing glory to the motherland, had recently intensified its attacks on her streak of individualism, which has grown only stronger since she left the Chinese sports system in 2008. The furor began after her collapse at the French Open a month earlier, when a reporter for the government's Xinhua news agency asked her to explain her disappointing result to her nation's fans. "I lost a match and that's it," Li snapped. "Do I need to get on my knees and kowtow to them?" Her comment ignited a round of official criticism, rebuking her lack of patriotism and manners. Now, the very same reporter raised his hand to ask Li, once again, to address her fans. She glared at him for almost a full minute before mumbling, "I say, 'Thank you, fans.' "

Li Na might prefer that we forget about China and judge her by her character and accomplishments alone. Hers, after all, is the tale of a conflicted working-class girl — the daughter of an athlete whose own dreams were thwarted by political strife — who rose to become one of the finest, richest and most influential players of her generation. All in a sport that most of her compatriots had never watched before.

A mercurial star who blends speed and power — and occasional meltdowns — Li became Asia's first and only Grand Slam singles champion when she won the French Open in 2011. She is also the first Chinese-born player to crack the world's Top Five — an elite group she rejoined last month after her run at Wimbledon. With nearly $40 million in sponsorship deals signed in the past three years, she is now the third-highest-compensated female athlete in any sport, trailing only Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams.

Sim Chi Yin/VII Mentor Program for the New York Times Magazine

Li Na begins a day of training with Romain Deffet in Beijing's southern outskirts. She trains six days a week, from morning to late afternoon, alternating fitness sessions and tennis.

Still, it is impossible to separate Li from China. She is one of the country's biggest celebrities, with more than 21 million followers on the Twitter-like Weibo (by comparison, LeBron James has 9.4 million Twitter followers). A record 116 million Chinese viewers watched her triumph in the French Open, a bigger audience than the Super Bowl attracted that year. The tens of millions of dollars in endorsements that Li has collected depend on her connection to the Chinese market. Had she been born in Chile, Chad or even Chicago, she would not be one of the top three earners. Nor would the Women's Tennis Association be unveiling a new pro tournament next year in her home city of Wuhan, in central China. Five years ago, the W.T.A. staged two tournaments in the country; in 2014, there will be eight. The W.T.A.'s chief executive, Stacey Allaster, credits Li with helping spark a tennis explosion in Asia. "If the Williams sisters had the greatest impact on the first decade of this century," Allaster says, "then I would say, without a doubt, that Li Na will be the most important player of this decade."

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: August 26, 2013

An earlier version of this article misidentified the city in Canada where the 2012 Rogers Cup tournament was held. The cup, which alternates locations, was played in Montreal that year, not in Toronto.

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