Li Na

Li retired from professional tennis on 19 September 2014.\n', '

Li Na was born on 26 February 1982 in Wuhan, Hubei, China. Her mother is Li Yanping (李豔萍); her father, Li Shengpeng (李盛鵬), was a professional badminton player and later worked as a sales rep for an Wuhan-based company. He died from a rare cardiovascular disease when Li was fourteen. Her mother didn\'t tell Li Na that her father had died for many weeks, thinking it would affect her game.\n', '

At age six, Li followed her father\'s footsteps and started playing badminton, which honed her reflexes. Just before she turned eight, Li was persuaded to switch to tennis by coach Xia Xiyao of the Wuhan youth tennis club. Her instructors taught tennis through negative reinforcement, which affected Li\'s confidence in later years. Li joined China\'s National Tennis Team in 1997. The following year, Li, sponsored by Nike, went to John…