"We took a lot of risks with this reform. When we let them fly, we didn't know if they would succeed. That they have now succeeded, means our reform was correct," said Sun Jinfang, an official with the Chinese Tennis Association. "This reform will serve as a good example for reforms in other sports."
At her news conference, Li wore a new T-shirt with Chinese characters that mean "sport changes everything," and offered thanks to Sun.
"Without her reform, then possibly we wouldn't have achieved this success," Li said.
When a reporter mentioned the June 1989 crackdown on prodemocracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square and asked whether her victory could spark a sports revolution, Li said she's "just" a tennis player and added, "I don't need to answer . . . this question."
Her tennis game, filled with flat forehands and backhands, looks better-built for hard courts, rather than the slow, red clay of Paris. Indeed, Li never had won a clay-court tournament until Saturday.
Li repeatedly set up points with her backhand, then closed them with her forehand, and she finished with 21 winners from the baseline, 15 more than Schiavone. Only after Li controlled the first set and the early part of the second did Schiavone begin working her way into the match.
She broke to 4-all in the second, and held to lead 6-5. The 12th game was pivotal.
Serving at deuce, Li smacked a backhand that landed near a sideline but initially was called out by a line judge, which would have given Schiavone a set point. But Li began walking up to take a closer look at the mark left in the clay by the shot, and chair umpire Louise Engzell climbed down to examine it, too. She told Schiavone the ball touched the line. Schiavone pointed at the spot in question, discussing the ruling with Engzell, who stood by her call.
Schiavone wouldn't win another point.
"That ball was out," she said later. "Sure, you get angry. . . . So what do you do? You're playing tennis, you have to go back to playing tennis and think about what you need to do. Obviously, I think it was a big mistake. But it's up to the tournament and others to watch that match again and evaluate the call."
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