Happy to be back

Li Na celebrates a winning point against Chang Kai-chen of Chinese Taipei in the women's team final on Tuesday.

GUANGZHOU - For Li Na, everything was fun when she took the court for Team China on Tuesday.

The world No 11 had not played for China since the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, where she reached the semifinals and made national tennis history.

Since then, the Wuhan native has focused on pro tour and not answered China's call to join the Federation Cup lineup.

"It's absolutely fun competing as a national team member, and different from the feeling of being a professional player on the tour," Li said after helping her team defeat Chinese Taipei 2-1 to win the women's team title at the Guangzhou Asian Games.

While the pro tour means moving from city to city and hotel to hotel with a fixed support team, inclusion on the national team provides joys such as doing everything with teammates, and even sharing girls' talk with roommates.

"I lived in the Athletes' Village and shared an apartment with Han Xinyun (a younger teammate)," said Li, who will not take part in the singles event and left the village on Tuesday night. "We exchanged a lot of girl talk at night."

On court, Li admitted she was not accustomed to instructions from the team's head coach, Jiang Hongwei, throughout the match.

Her coach, Swede Thomas Hogstedt, and her husband, Jiang Shan, were sitting in the stands while head coach Jiang was next to the court.

However, the first people Li looks to for inspiration are Hogstedt and her husband, as she frequently looks up to them after losing a point. And she appeared a bit impatient when coach Jiang tried to talk to her during a break.

"I could not help it (looking at Hogstedt and Jiang)," she said. "I am not used to talking to a coach at every break because there is no such on-court instruction on the professional tour."

After starting the season with a semifinal finish at the Australian Open and ending with an Asian Games gold medal, Li has had her best pro season so far; one in which she also broke into the world top 10.

Now all she needs is a good rest.

"This was a very long season and I want to have a good rest before thinking about what I will achieve next season," she said.

China Daily