China's Li Na ready for 'new life' with baby on the way

In what she describes as her "new life", China's Li Na is dealing with morning sickness, hoping for a baby girl and dreaming of becoming a housewife. The two-time grand slam champion says she will try not to tell her future child that she was once one of the world's best tennis players.

Not that she regrets a moment of her career. If she could go back, Li wouldn't change a thing. Her life and career until now, she said, have been "perfect".

A day after making a centre-court appearance to publicly announce her pregnancy, the recently retired 32-year-old Li reflected on how difficult it was to leave the sport but said that she had been thinking about retirement for a long time and now feels at peace with her decision.

"If I have a next life, I will still choose tennis," Li said yesterday. "It was a very tough decision for me to make, to say goodbye to tennis. But I think now I just have to continue to do what I'm doing, to take care of our family."

Coming back to Melbourne marked a full circle in the life of Li. She returned to the Australian Open on Monday but not to defend her title, instead she came on to centre court to announce she and her husband, Jiang Shan, were expecting their first child.

Later, she posted a message on Facebook saying she chose to deliver the baby news on Rod Laver Arena because of the special connection she felt with the Australian crowd. It was there she made her breakthrough in 2011, becoming the first Asian to reach a grand slam final, and where she gained popularity with post-match interviews that doubled as stand-up comedy routines.

In characteristic good humour, Li said yesterday that there were upsides to retirement, which she announced in September in the wake of a fourth knee operation.