Li Na

Li Na married Jiang Shan on January 27, 2006 and he later became her personal coach.

Li Na was born on February 26, 1982 in Wuhan, Hubei, China, to Li Shengpeng and Li Yanping. Her father is a professional badminton player.

In 1988, she started playing badminton but changed to tennis after two years, on her coach Xia Xiyao's insistence. Her tennis instructors used negative reinforcement which severely affected the girl’s confidence.

Her beloved father died suddenly when Li was 14, leaving her heartbroken. Her mother’s remarriage shortly afterwards saddened the teenager further.

In 1997, she joined China's National Tennis Team. A year later she went to John Newcombe Academy in Texas to study tennis for 10 months, on a sponsorship from Nike.

After turning professional in 1999, Li Na won three out of her four ITF Circuit singles tournaments and all seven ITF doubles tournaments. In 2000, she won 52 singles matches on the circuit, the highest by any player.

In 2004 she became the first Chinese player to win a WTA event after defeating Martina Sucha in the finals. With such an impressive performance, she found herself in the WTA top 100 for the first time on October 4, 2004.

She won her second WTA singles title at the 2008 Mondial Australian Women's Hard courts in Gold Coast, Australia.

She reached her fifth career tour final, at the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships and lost to Marion Bartoli. By the end of 2009, her ranking was world No. 15.

At the 2010 Australian Open, she defeated Caroline Wozniacki and Venus Williams before losing to Serena Williams in the semi-final. This performance made her the first Chinese woman to break into the Top 10 of women's professional tennis.

By defeating Serena Williams in the 2008 Porsche Grand Prix tournament, she became only the second Chinese after Zheng Jie, to defeat a world No. 1 player.

In 2012, she was listed at No. 85 in the 'Forbes Celebrity List' and No. 5 and No. 8 in the 'Forbes China Celebrity 100’ list in 2012 and 2014, respectively.

In 2013, 'Time' magazine named her in its annual list of the '100 Most Influential People in the World'.

In 2014 she became the first Asian to win the Australian Open and also the fourth woman to win the title after being a match point down.

On April 15, 2015 Laureus World Sports presented her with the 'Laureus Academy Exceptional Achievement' award.