Last night China’s Li Na put the ‘na’ in gnarly after locking down her first Australian Open title with a straight sets victory over tiny, hard-hitting Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova, 7-6 (3), 6-0.
Li, who has reached the Open final on two previous occasions in the past four years, has endeared herself to the Australian crowd with her impish sense of humour and last night was in fine form on the podium, thanking her husband for, essentially, being her enabling lackey. Watch below.
The men’s final will get underway at 7.30pm tonight when Rafael Nadal and Swiss world #8 Stanislas Wawrinka step onto Rod Laver Arena to close an interesting two weeks of men’s tennis, punctuated by upsets and surprises.
Wawrinka has had a pretty sensational run, toppling Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinal and Tomas Berdych in a tight semifinal on the road to his first Grand Slam final. However, with a head-to-head record favouring Nadal 12-0 we’ll see if Wawrinka can extract another win against the in-form Rafa.
Photo: Clive Brunskill for Getty Images
