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At her third attemp, Li Na finally won more than one set to beat her opponent and become the oldest Australian Open champion in the Open Era, beating Dominika Cibulkova by 7-6(3) 6-0. She now has two Grand Slam titles.
With both players feeling the pressure in the opening games, the best ever Chinese player took advantage of the past finals to win the first couple of games. On the other side of the net was Cibulkova, the first Slovakian to play a Majors final in the Open Era, and she was motivated to win more than a few games.
The start was promissing, as Li and Cibulkova showed they could break their opponents’ serve for more than once, but then the tiebreak came. If Li expressed some nerves three years ago, when playing her first final, Cibulkova did the same today and was unable to comeback, with the Chinese player playing an almost perfect tiebreak to finish the tournament with a bagel.
Humble, calm and always quite sure of she does inside the court, Li Na raised her arms after winning the final point. Her win means the second Major title for China in the past three years, after four finals, and happens only a few months after Li admitting she was really, really close of quitting tennis.
Next week, Li will be back to number 3, closer than ever of Victoria Azarenka (reaching the second place is one of her main goals for 2014), while Dominika Cibulkova will be ranked 13.
