French Open champion Li attracts Chinese fans
By Roger Cleaveland Republican-American NEW HAVEN — It took until the final singles match of the fourth day of main draw play, but French Open champion Li Na finally made her 2011 New Haven Open debut. The No. 2 seed didn't disappoint the 4,192 fans at the Connecticut Tennis Center, including several hundred Chinese.
Li, the No. 7 player in the world, rallied from trailing 3-1 in the first set and 4-1 in the second set to beat Russian Maria Kirilenko in straight sets, 6-4, 7-6 (4), Wednesday night.
"If I go anywhere now, more China fans are coming," Li said. "Not just China fans. All over the world, they will know who I am. I like this. It was good life-changing."
She wasn't happy with herself for a lack of focus to start the second set, but recovered to play well over the final five sets and the tie-breaker.
"I was like, 'What are you doing here? You win the first set; you need to pressure opponent,'" Li said. "No one wants to come back from 3-1 down, 4-1 down, but this is tennis and she played well today. Maybe just some points I didn't take it, so she had a chance. I don't think I played bad tennis. Just sometimes maybe she did better than me."
Li said she asked for a wild card into the New Haven Open because she needed to get in more matches to prepare herself for the U.S. Open. She knows she has to be on top of her game because her French Open title has changed her career.
"Right now every opponent against me is feeling they have nothing to lose, so I don't think they have any pressure," Li said. "You have to trust yourself on the court. Opponents are so happy to beat me, to think, 'Oh, I beat a grand slam champion.' After French Open, I think it is even more tough now."
Wozniacki's charitable run: Top seed Caroline Wozniacki, the No. 1 player in the world, had Wednesday off to rest for today's feature match against 19-year-old American Christina McHale. But the three-time New Haven winner offered her time and celebrity status to help bring some attention to the tournament's Cybex Pink Ribbon Run.
The tournament has a pink treadmill set up in the picnic area to help raise money for breast cancer research and raise awareness of the benefits of exercise.
Players, fans, sponsors and everybody else on site are encouraged to walk or run on the treadmill to raise funds for the breast center of the Smilow Cancer Center at Yale-New Haven and Susan G. Komen Connecticut affiliate. Donations are also being solicited on site and online.
Through Tuesday night, 126.8 miles had been logged. Wozniacki added three miles to that Wednesday morning, running it in 22 minutes. At one point during the run, Wozniacki was sprinting at 9.5 mph.
Tournament director Anne Worcester, who lost both her parents to cancer, was diagnosed with breast cancer March 2, had surgery April 27 and started back at work in early June. She said Wozniacki was supportive throughout her diagnosis and recovery.
"The best thing about Caroline is she doesn't think she did me a favor," Worcester said. "She sees it as a way to work out on site and help raise funds for a good cause."
Wozniacki also helped convince her boyfriend, U.S. Open golf champion Rory McIlroy, to support the tournament's breast cancer initiative by running on the treadmill. He couldn't run with Wozniacki Tuesday because he had made arrangements to play at the TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, home of the Travelers Championship. But McIlroy said he will run, or walk, on the pink treadmill today at around 2 p.m.
Wozniacki brought McIlroy to the sponsors' reception Monday to boost the tournament.
"He had just gotten off his flight from Belfast," Worcester said. "I just gave a talk to business leaders of the region, and I said this is one of the top five tournament director stories I have up my sleeve: to have not just the No. 1 player in the world coming to this reception but the golfer who just won the U.S. Open."
Not her first quake: During interviews after her 6-2, 2-6, 6-1 victory over Klara Zakopalova on Wednesday, Marion Bartoli said Tuesday's earthquake wasn't the first she has experienced as a player.
At 15, she went to the U-16 World Championships in Hiroshima, Japan, with a French team.
"The first practice we had coming off the plane, we had a huge earthquake on the court," Bartoli said. "We thought maybe because we were so jet-lagged that we felt like everything was moving. We find it was really an earthquake because the courts start to break in three different pieces and the chair umpire was starting to move like crazy.
Half-American: During Wed-nesday's match, Bartoli yelled out, "Come on!" in English after some of her winners while at other times she would yell, "Allez!" in French, which translates to "Let's go!"
"Well, I guess tomorrow I will say 'Vamos,' (Spanish for let's go) and I will be able to speak three languages on the court," Bartoli said. "Maybe because I spend so much time in the States, I am thinking in English right now instead of French. I don't even think about what I am saying on the court. It just comes extremely naturally. I guess maybe I am becoming half-American."
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