When Li Na steps on to court at Wimbledon, few will be rooting for her harder than the 13-year-old Song Nanxi. Li's victory at the French Open – where she became the first Chinese player to win a grand slam singles title – has made her a heroine to compatriots. "I was hugely inspired … Li Na is my model and there is so much to learn from her," said Song, of the Jiujiang Tennis Club, who won Jiangxi province's junior doubles title last year. "Before, my friends did not really know about tennis, but now they do and many want to learn to play."
The sport is counting on the 29-year-old Li to accelerate its development in China, where a growing middle-class is learning to love watching and playing tennis. "Sometimes this kind of experience will influence a whole generation," said David Yang of China's Sports Illustrated, noting the surge of excitement and patriotic pride.
The state broadcaster, CCTV, said 116m Chinese viewers watched the final of the French Open, almost doubling the previous high, for the Australian Open final when Li Na lost to Belgium's Kim Clijsters. Li was even plastered across the front of the staid official Communist newspaper, People's Daily, a privilege almost always reserved for the most senior leaders.
Terry Rhoads, of the Shanghai-based sports consultants Zou Marketing, who first met Li when she was in her teens, believes her win has captured the interest of people who normally have no interest in sport. "Chinese fans absolutely adore world champions. You can be a national champion and people won't pay that much attention but, if you can be the best in the world, it breaks right through," he said.
Tom McCarthy, whose Beijing International Group promotes grass-roots and elite tennis, points out that her success follows other important landmarks such as China's first Olympic tennis gold medal in 2004 and its first grand slam title in 2006, when Zheng Jie and Yan Zi took the women's doubles at the Australian Open.
They are among the reasons that the number of what he calls "real" players – who pick up their rackets more than once a week – has risen from one million in 2005 to 8m today. The Women's Tennis Association notes that there are 90,000 courts, with the number increasing by 15% a year. But good equipment and coaching are still expensive – and beyond the reach of most Chinese families – and Maggie Rauch, editor of the China Sports Today, suggests cultural factors hold back sport in general. "[Given] the focus on culture and testing and the hours you have to put in with tennis, you have to have unusual parents who see the value of that," she said.
Li's impact on other sports may be just as important because her victory in Paris has implications for the top-down, strictly controlled system China has built to create elite athletes. It follows the China Tennis Association's decision to "free" her and three other players – Zheng, Yan and Peng Shuai – in 2008. The "fly alone" policy allows them to set their own schedules, choose their own coaches and keep 65% of their earnings rather than 12%.
"We took a lot of risks with this reform. That they have now succeeded means our reform was correct," said Sun Jinfang, of the association, following the French Open. "This will serve as a good example for reforms in other sports."
Rauch said changes are unlikely before next summer's London Olympics but thinks the pressure for a shift is real. "If they keep on doing what they are doing, I would expect them to continue to be at the top of the medals [table] at the Olympics but I think they want more. The government wants sports to be part of their soft power platform. To do that they have to do more than haul in a bunch of gold medals every four years," she said.
Not everyone is convinced. "Li Na's win will not change the situation of officials controlling sports at all," said Yang, who sees tennis as an anomaly. McCarthy also warned that athletes should be careful what they wish for. While most players hand over large chunks of their winnings, they receive regular funding and support, without which, many would struggle to survive.
But if China wants to use sport to boost its soft power, Li's win is a good place to start. That she is not in the mould of most of its athletes – her thank-yous in Paris did not include her country – works in her favour overseas. "She is right up there with [basketball's] Yao Ming in her ability to help people look at China in a different light," said Rhoads.
Her tattoo and her fluent English help, as does her confidence. "If I were a man, I would be as famous as Yao Ming," she told one interviewer.
So, too, do her willingness to crack jokes about her husband's snoring and her victory at 29 after an unorthodox career. "She worked so hard, had her ups and downs; it hasn't been a linear path," said Rhoads. "She's had a lot of injuries. She quit the game for 18 months because she was burned out. She has really climbed a mountain and I think that's inspirational."
Additional research by Han Cheng