Li wasn't the only one to win a first major last year

Editor's note: During the China Open, China Daily will collaborate with the WTA to bring you columns from various women's players in an effort to provide insight into life on the tour.

Hi everybody, I am Samantha Stosur from Australia. I am happy to be here sharing my impression of Beijing.

I've been here many times and I still remember the early days of the China Open, when it was held in a smaller venue on the other side of the city. I sort of witnessed the tournament's progress over years.

Since it moved to the Olympic venue in 2009, it's reminded me a lot of playing in the Beijing Olympics. That was probably my favorite Olympics, to be honest. I like the design of the park. It's great to stay so close to the village. When you drive past the village, the swimming pool, the Bird's Nest, everything is nearby. It's a good experience.

I also enjoyed this year's Games in London. But for athletes, in Beijing it was easier to go and see other sports. We could take the bus anywhere without long rides. Everything was quite close. I could go to five or six different sports in one day, and that was something that was difficult in London.

I am a big fan of local culture everywhere I travel. Last year, I went to one of the biggest hot pot restaurants in town. There were maybe 500 people eating at once and it's open 24 hours, which was interesting. Fortunately, we found a guy speaking English and he ordered food for us. Otherwise, we had no idea how to order and what we were going to eat. That was fun.

I also found it's difficult learning Chinese. They taught me some last year but I only picked up some simple things like ni hao and xie xie.

Australians in general are very bad with languages. I wish I could've tried hard and listened more in school. But I didn't care at that time. I didn't realize I would eventually tour other countries. If I could do one more thing, I'd love to speak another language.

I didn't realize that so many people would recognize me in China. I guess that's because I had a fierce rivalry with Li Na in recent years.

Still, I think she's done very well for tennis in China and the world.

I can feel the atmosphere here. There's been a big increase in interest over the past four years. You can't buy that - you need a player to do well and make it more popular. I totally understand what she went through last year.

When you do better, there will always be more pressure and commitments. I think it's part of being professional. Your day is going to be quite busy, but you still have to make sure you practice and you do everything you need to play well, because without that, you won't have good results and all that stuff will go away.

For her, it's a unique situation maybe, that someone can become so big so quickly and draw so much interest. It's because of the population in China. China has only grown bigger in the world, and not only in tennis. She's part of that process.

Although I won the US Open last year, there's a big difference. I got new sponsors and a couple of other things, but nothing like Li in this market. Australia is so small compared with China.

Samantha Stosur is ranked ninth in the world. She won the US Open last year.

(China Daily 10/02/2012 page12)