Li Na has eventually broken her Australian Open drought by beating Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova 76 (73) 60 today in an action packed Ladies Final.

The popular Chinese player who is the only woman to have reached the final, won the first set, and never gone on to win the match, was the overall favourite to lift the trophy after the departure of the three top seeds ahead of her.

The first set took 1hr 10mins in which Li Na broke Cibulkova’s opening service game and maintained the lead.  It was not until the 6th game that Cibulkova managed to break Li Na back and then held her own serve.  In the 9th game, Li Na had a chance to break Cibulkova’s serve again, but missed an easy opportunity which the Slovakian capitalised on.  The set went to a tiebreak, which Li Na won 7-3.  Li Na will not regard this as her best first set performance with 25 unforced errors.  She however managed to hit 22 winners versus the 7 by Cibulkova.  Cibulkova also served 6 double faults.

With the first set behind her, she needed just 27 minutes to close out the match.  The scoreline did not do justice to Cibulkova’s performance.  The Slovakian who ousted two of the top four seeds, Maria Sharapova & Victoria Azarenka earlier in the week capitalised when Li Na got tight and again showed us her powerful game, but possibly the big stage got to her as she was just not able to repeat her performances today.  Cibulkova now moves up to the No. 13 spot.

As well as celebrating her 8th wedding anniversary with her husband, Jiang Shan on Monday, it’s going to be a good Chinese New Year for Li Na next week.  This win now moves her up to the No. 3 spot ahead of Maria Sharapova.

From a South African point of view, Lucas Sithole (2) lost to the American David Wagner (1) 63 57 36 in the Quad Wheelchair Singles Final.  Unseeded Raven Klaasen & Eric Butorac lost to Lukasz Kubot & Robert Lindstedt (14) 36 36 in the Men’s Doubles Final.

Image courtesy of the Australian Open Tennis Tournament.