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China bends rules for medal hope

Li Na gestures to the umpire during her women's singles fourth round match against Martina Hingis of Switzerland at the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne last month. PHOTO: AFP

China's national tennis federation has admitted bending its own rules banning romantic relationships in an effort to ease pressure on Li Na, a top medal hope for next year's Olympic Games.

Sport and romance are kept at arms length by China's state-funded sports administration, which demands that competitors focus exclusively on their sport.

National team members have been dismissed in the past for romantic involvements with fellow team members.

However an exception has been made for Li, 24, the world No. 16 ranked player who has been allowed to appoint her own husband as coach, according to the China Daily.

The newspaper said that her husband, Jiang Shan, had achieved little of note as a player and was completely lacking in coaching experience.

Sun Jinfang, the head of the federation, was quoted as saying that she had agreed to the move in order to ease the pressure on Li ahead of the Olympic Games.

"I simply wanted her to feel better on the intense WTA tour, so we did something hardly seen before in China's sports history," Sun said.

Li rose to prominence last year when she reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, the best singles performance by a Chinese player at a grand slam tournament.

The downside for Li, criticized in the past for her hot temper and alleged mental weakness, is that she is now bearing the brunt of China's expectations for a Olympic tennis gold medal in Beijing next year.

Last week she showed some signs of cracking at a tennis tournament in Tokyo when she spoke of the "unrealistic goal" of winning a medal at next year's games.
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