China’s Na Li Thorugh to The Quarterfinals Beating Her Italian Opponent Francesca Schiavone

China’s Na Li enters her first US Open quarterfinals and only her second Grand Slam quarterfinals since Wimbledon in 2006, with her 6-2, 6-3 victory over Italian Francesca Schiavone at Louis Armstrong Stadium.

Li has had a more successful hard court season than Schiavone and today was no different as she fired off 22 winners to Schiavone’s five.

The match got off to a lackluster start, with short rallies, a number of unforced errors, and baseliner Li dictating play. Schiavone appeared slightly sluggish and had no response to Li’s strong forehand, as she also seemed to have some trouble with her backhand slice.

But as play progressed, Li, 27, and Schiavone, 29, hit with more consistency and confidence, trading powerful well-placed serves and deep ground strokes with amazing pace.

Down a break in game seven, Schiavone hurled an excellent down-the-line forehand winner that livened up the crowd, but it wasn’t enough to keep Li from taking the set 6-2.

Schiavone got the crowd to its feet with an exciting point again in the second set, getting to a couple of impossible-to-reach shots and finally tossing her racket into the air in an effort to reach Li’s final winner. But she couldn’t make contact with Li’s hard, deep ground strokes and Li got the break in the fourth game to go up 3-1.

Not giving up yet, Schiavone broke back in the next game, as Li double faulted at deuce. In her next service game, Schiavone gave up her own double fault to face three break points, but she saved them all in some thrilling tennis to hold serve.

But Li followed with an excellent service game of her own taking it at love. She broke Schiavone next to serve out the match, taking the final game as she forced Schiavone into mistakes.

There have been no upsets during No. 18 Li’s path as she has been the higher ranked player in all four of her matches this week, having defeated Ioana Raluca Olary (53), Michelle Larcher de Brito (110), Maria Kirilenko (59), and now Schiavone (26). She will next face Kim Clijsters.

Her strong, confidant style of play also helped make history this June when she, along with Zheng Jie, became the first two Chinese players to be ranked in the Top 20 on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.