An estimated 116 million Chinese people watched Li Na’s historic win at the French Open. They knew that history was taking place, but what history, whose history? Could it really just be the culmination of an athlete’s path to glory? Or a vindication of hard work and perseverance? Nope, not when you come from a country of 1.3 billion. Almost immediately, Li Na’s victory was taken to serve as proof for all kinds of theories. Any detail of her past was scrutinized, enlarged, and pointed to as the reason for her success.

Less than 48 hours after Li’s victory, BBC News ran a story entitled, “Li Na victory prompts calls for China sport reform,” which focused on Li Na’s decision, in 2008, to opt out of the state system and set up her own training team. According to Voice of America, the new agreement with Chinese authorities allowed athletes to “choose their coaches and decide which matches to play.” In the BBC News’ own words:

Following [Li Na's] victory in Paris, the country’s top tennis official, Sun Jinfang, said other Chinese athletes were being held back by the system.

Ms Sun told the state-run Xinhua news agency that more athletes should be allowed to follow Li’s lead in order to maximise their potential.

She stressed that there must be innovation in the centralised training system.

Xinhua, however, painted the picture differently and somewhat defensively:

Li is a bit of a rebel who has had her differences at times with the state-run sports system, but she admitted that the system benefited her a lot, with her own family impossible to cover the expenses for training and competing. When Li was battling her knee injury in 2009, she even returned to the system for help.

Keep in mind, being called a rebel in China isn’t exactly the compliment it is in the United States. You don’t run for president after being labeled one—more often they disappear you into a labor camp. So Li’s win suggests that China’s state-run sports system needs revamping and maybe she wouldn’t have been able to win had she stayed within that system. Not sure I buy that second part but any other thoughts? Someone bring up money, I dare you. VoA?

At the end of 2008, Li and some of China’s other top tennis players signed an agreement with Chinese authorities in which they could freely choose their coaches and decide which matches to play.  One important result of the new agreement is that players keep a larger percentage of their winnings than before.

Okay, so maybe there was a monetary incentive to win. God knows athletes don’t like to win unless there’s something in it for them, aside from the prize money, corporate sponsorship, book deals, and everlasting glory. Time, insinuate in an interview that she broke from the state-run system solely for the money, I won’t judge:

Back in 2008, you split with the Chinese Tennis Association, which was entitled to 65% of your earnings. Was that decision based on money, or was there more to it?

Sixty-five percent is like normal because the [All-China Sports] Federation pays everything for you — they pay for the coach, hotel, traveling. If you stay in the national team, even if you don’t do well, you still have money. I think now there’s even more pressure [on me] because I have to pay for myself. We still have to pay a little percentage back to the federation. But I wanted more challenges. I [had never been] on a professional tennis tour.

Do you have more passion for tennis now?

Before, I felt like tennis was my job. I prefer what I’m doing now. I’m the boss, so it’s much easier.

I was going to start yelling at the interviewer for asking such a condescending question but the follow-up was actually salient. Li Na’s candid answers even evoke a bit of the Tiger Mother discussion and confirms that some people work harder when they feel that their achievements are their own. If pressure is what’s lacking from the state-run system, maybe it’s time to wean China’s men’s soccer team of the national teat.

Other sources have begun speculating what Li’s win might mean for tennis in China and whether she will become China’s next international superstar athlete. According to China Daily, Xinhua, a county with a little over a million residents in Hunan, is claiming to be Li Na’s hometown, even though she was born and raised 500 kilometers to the northeast in Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hubei. I know that people like to live vicariously though their local sports stars but come on.

It’s normal for people to want to dissect success, to try and divine some pattern or template, though none have succeeded so far. Li Na’s performance in Paris means something beyond her own accomplishment. It means something for her country, and for her sport. But we should try and distinguish true conclusions from charlatans shamelessly trying to ride the coattails of someone more capable. In the end, being a patent clerk does not increase your chances of being awarded the Nobel Prize and any more than being born in Stratford-upon-Avon increases your chance of being a timeless poet.

Li Na began playing badminton at age 6 and tennis at age 9. By all accounts she works hard and has no-nonsense attitude. Perhaps the most attractive thing about Li, and the quality that will make her a fresh, new kind of Chinese star, is her actual personality. People have cited the tattoo on her chest, her choice of husband as coach, and her G-rated McEnroe-esque outbursts as signs of a fierce individuality. Even the fun-hating Global Times wrote:

Li’s impressive performance on the court was driven by her own personality and it represents a social change in China during the past two decades. Mainly, the constraints on self-expression have been shaken off. This forthright girl represents a different China that allows her to “just be herself.”

Impressive. It’s true, Li’s experiences and disarming yet steely attitude could easily resonate with a rising generation of Chinese youth sick of the system they grew up in and are struggling to break free of. If Li’s success could serve to give this generation more confidence to pursue their dreams, I think that would be the greatest gift Li could give to her country.

But all this rests on her ability to continue performing well, if not win outright. Remember Liu Xiang? Me neither. Like all fans, Chinese people like winners, but they especially laud those that break new athletic ground, excelling at sports in which China is not traditionally strong—which is why Yao Ming, Liu Xiang, and Li Na are more famous than any ping-pong or badminton champion.

With Wimbledon kicking off next week, I wish Li Na the best of luck, though something tells me she doesn’t rely on something so arbitrary for success. If she does well I’m sure we’ll see her holding bottles of Coke on bus stop billboards in no time. But in the midst of all this hubbub, perhaps the athlete herself had the most realistic appraisal of her future in her post-match interview.* When asked what she expects when she returns to China, she replied:

“I didn’t have time [to go] back to China right now,” Li explained. “I will [go] back to China after Wimbledon. So, if I didn’t do well at Wimbledon, maybe people forget me already. This is a tough time.”

I think I like this girl.