If you've been missing Justine Henin lately, you might want to tune in to Li Na’s semifinal against Maria Sharapova tomorrow from Beijing. No, you won’t see a re-creation of Justine’s famously fabulous one-handed backhand; Li still goes with her two-hander, which isn’t too shabby itself. But you will see a service motion that begins in a Henin-esque way, as Li brings both of her arms up in unison as she tosses the ball. The moment is over in a flash, but it should give any tennis a tiny rush of déja vù.
More important, it should also let fans know that Li’s new coach, and Justine’s old one, Carlos Rodriguez, is beginning to have an effect on his player’s game. A physical effect, to be more accurate. Rodriguez appears to have had effect on Li’s mind from the moment they began working together during the U.S. hard-court season this summer. The two had never met previously, and their arrangement, for Rodriguez, was frankly one of convenience. He has a tennis academy in China, and he says coaching Li is the best way for him to get publicity for it there. Still, from the start, Rodriguez knew what he needed to do with Li. This is, according to what he told USA Today in August, **what he said to her on their first day together:
“For the moment, you have to learn how to drive this (points to heart) with this (points to head). Because when the opposite happens it’s a real disaster.”
That’s a pretty good summation of most of Li Na’s troubles over the last decade. Rodriguez is obviously a perceptive coach, but it didn’t take a genius to figure that out. One look at Li barking at her long-suffering husband (he also served as her coach) in the stands was enough to let anyone know that she could benefit from a different mental approach. But Rodriguez, for the moment, has walked the walk. Li herself says she’s a calmer player with him in her corner.
“I really have to say he’s a very good coach,” Li said of Rodriguez earlier this week in Beijing. “He not only teaches me how to play tennis. He teaches me a lot about how to [act] on court. Before it was always easy for me to explode. Now I think I have changed a lot.”
If her win today over defending champion Agnieszka Radwanska is any indication, it’s a change for the better. Li is typically referred to as a “rhythm player,” which basically means she’s streaky. She often appears to be cruising to victory, only to turn 180 degrees in the other direction and hand the match back to her opponent. But I’ve rarely seen her in a smoother and surer rhythm than she was in today. Li was coming off two easy wins over Radwanska this summer, in which she surrendered just five games in total, and the confidence from those matches showed immediately—Li opened the match with a topspin lob winner. She dictated with her backhand at will, and didn’t go for broke needlessly with her often shaky forehand. If there’s a streakiest part of her streaky game, it’s that shot, and it has spelled her demise many times. Today it was a forehand down the line bullet that earned Li the first set.
Li has felt the pressure in her home country in the past. Perhaps the bitterest pill she has had to swallow in her career was missing out on an Olympic medal on these same Beijing courts in 2008. But this week she has ridden the crowd’s support to wins over a hot-hitting Nadia Petrova, and now Radwanska. Li and Rodgriguez still seem to be in the honeymoon phase of their coaching relationship. He can’t hide his excitement at her success in the stands, and she jokes that she calls him on court during matches because she doesn’t like to see him sitting for so long, that he “needs to move around.” For the moment, it’s a better scene than the one we were used to seeing from Li: Her jabbering angrily at her husband, while he sat and took it with a sheepish smile.
It remains to be seen how long the honeymoon between Li and Rodgriguez lasts, though stability seems to be his thing. He coached Justine for 16 years, and helped remake her from a sometimes skittish teenager to a paragon of mental toughness. One thing he isn’t likely to change with Li, though, is her inconsistency—he can minimize it with technical or tactical changes, but it’s hard to see it being eliminated. Li showed that she can still go on a bad streak in her round-of-16 match in Beijing this week, against her countrywoman Shuai Peng. Li committed 16 double faults in that one, before squeaking through in a third-set tiebreaker. Maybe Justine’s service motion isn’t for everyone. Or maybe the point is that Li won that match over Peng anyway; she might not have in the past.
With her win over Radwanska, Li locked up the eighth and final spot in the WTA Championships in Istanbul later this month. That in itself is a sign of a solid year’s worth of results. She’ll play Maria Sharapova in the semifinals this weekend, which will be an interesting test. Last spring Li had one of her highest-profile meltdowns, and comebacks, in her loss to Maria in the Rome final. This was a better Li today, but it was a better Sharapova today as well. The Russian didn’t lose a game to Angelique Kerber.
In 2013, the WTA will begin with a triumvirate at the top: Serena Williams, Victoria Azarenka, and Sharapova. With Rodriguez’s calming influence and coaching knowledge, Li would appear, at the ripe young age of 30, to be in a place to make that a quartet. Doing that won’t mean winning matches when she’s playing well, like today’s; it will mean winning the ones when she can’t find her forehand or her serve, like the one against Peng. But Li has made the first step. By changing coaches, she’s begun to put her head, rather then her heart, in charge.