China’s first grand slam singles champion Li Na formally announced her retirement on Friday, leaving Chinese tennis yearning for its next superstar.

Li, 32, made the announcement on her micro-blog one day after rumors of her impending retirement surfaced on social media.

Like many elite Chinese athletes, Li was hand-picked to train with China’s sports system at the start of her tennis career. However, she quit the national team in 2008 under an experimental reform policy for tennis players. As a result, Li had the freedom to hire her own coaching staff. So she would be solely responsible for the cost of training and coaching as well as the expenses she incurred of being on the professional circuit.

Li Na captured the 2011 French Open title at the age of 29, where she defeated Francesca Schiavone to become the first person from Asia to win a grand slam singles title.

At the age of 31, she captured her second grand slam title at the 2014 Australian Open by defeating Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova. The following month she achieved the highest ever singles ranking by an Asian player when she climbed to number two in the world.