Amazingly, Li had faced a match point against Lucie Safarova in the 3rd round and became only the 4th woman to survive a match and win the tournament.
The first set was a scratchy affair, with Li going up an early break and held serve to go up 2-0. She had chances to up 3-0 but was not able to get the break. After that, Cibulkova settled down and eventually evened up the match at 3-all as Li could not buy a first serve. (At one point her service percentage was 26%, and included a double fault on breakpoint down.) The next few games went on serve and the key point in the match was when Li held at 4-5 and also when Li broke to go up 6-5 and could not serve out the set despite holding a set point. Instead she was broken again and forced into a tie-brea, which she was able to win 7-3. After that, her service percentage rocketed to 75% and she gained in confidence and started hitting winners from all over the court, while Cibulkova started missing more. The result was a lightning fast 6-0 second set and Li became the 2014 Australian Open singles champion.
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