Li Na signs up for Hopman Cup

Written by: Global Chick on 16th October 2011

Li Na signs up for Hopman Cup

Na Li of China waves as she leaves the court after losing to Simona Halep of Romania during their first round match on the second day of the 2011 US Open Tennis Championship at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, USA 30 August 2011. The US Open runs through 11 September 2011. EPA/ANDREW GOMBERT |

French Open Champion Li Na will visit Perth and the Hopman Cup for the first time this summer. Li Na will team up with World No. 423 Wu Di.

The Chinese player is currently ranked No. 6 on the WTA Tour rankings. She reached the final of the Australian Open in January where she lost to Kim Clijsters in three sets. It wasn’t until the Madrid tournament in April Li Na started to play well again after having some bad losses. Leading up to the French Open she reached the semi-finals in Madrid (l. Kvitova) and Rome (l. Stosur).

During her two weeks at Roland Garros she defeated Cirstea Sorana, Petra Kvitova, Victoria Azarenka, Maria Sharapova and in the final she took out Francesca Schiavone.

Li Na’s 20-year-old partner Di Wu has been playing mainly on the Futures and Challengers Tour. He did receive a wildcard into the China Open in Beijing last week where he lost in the first round to the much more experienced Marin Cilic of Croatia 2-6 0-6.

The official draw has been done for the Hyundai Hopman Cup 2012. The seedings have been done and the countries have been split into two groups:

GROUP A (Seeding in brackets)

(1) Czech Republic

Petra Kvitova & Tomas Berdych

(4) USA

Bethanie Mattek-Sands & Mardy Fish

Denmark

Caroline Wozniacki & Frederik Nielsen

Bulgaria

Tsvetana Pironkova & Grigor Dimitrov

GROUP B

(2) France