Southern Spice – Sports Entertainment

Olympic semi-finalist Li Na crashed out of the China Open in the first round Tuesday despite high hopes in Beijing for home-grown success.
Li, China’s highest-ranked player, who also reached the fourth round of the US Open, slipped to a 6-1, 7-6 (7-4) defeat against Italy’s Francesca Schiavone in just under two hours.
“Today, I think I was in a hurry and I made many faults,” the 29th-ranked Li said.
Li admitted she had failed to take her chances during the match, for example when serving for the second set at 5-3.
“I’m a little bit afraid of anticipating upcoming matches,” she said, referring to her first round defeats both here and at last week’s Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo.
China’s Zheng Jie, ranked just one place behind Li, starts her bid for a China Open victory later Tuesday.
Zheng reached the Wimbledon semi-finals this summer and lost in the semi-finals of the Guangzhou Open on Saturday.
The best result in the tournament by a local female player was a semi-final finish by Peng Shuai in 2006, who reached the final in Guangzhou over the weekend. She was also due to play later Tuesday.
In other first round matches, Canada’s Aleksandra Wozniak beat Virginie Razzano, from France, 6-7 (3-7), 7-5, 6-4 and Japan’s Ai Sugiyama beat China’s Yan Zi 6-3, 6-4.
Serbians Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic are seeded one and two in the 600,000-dollar China Open, with both chasing the women’s number one spot currently held by Serena Williams.
New world number three Dinara Safina, who captured the Pan Pacific Open title, withdrew due to injury.
Meanwhile, on the men’s side of the draw in Beijing, defending champion and Olympic silver medallist Fernando Gonzalez faces a tough battle to retain his title, with top seed David Ferrer and former world number one Andy Roddick in the hunt.