Tennis star Li Na, the first Chinese national to win a Grand Slam tournament, announced her retirement on Friday, citing a difficult recovery from knee surgery.
Ms Li arguably reached the pinnacle of her career only months ago when she won the Australian Open singles title in January, elevating her ranking to a career-high No. 2. She had recently fallen to No. 6 after missing tournaments due to injury.
“While I’ve come back from surgery in the past, this time it felt different. One of my goals was to recover as fast as I could in order to be ready for the first WTA tournament in my hometown of Wuhan. As hard as I tried to get back to being 100 per cent, my body kept telling me that, at 32, I will not be able to compete at the top level ever again,” Ms Li said in a statement on Facebook.