A language barrier was no obstacle to perceiving her sense of humor and mischief even if she also could be, on the rough days, as walled off as a hutong courtyard. Like many a funny person, Li had a flip side, as when she stared down a Chinese reporter for a minute that felt like an hour at a Wimbledon news conference in 2013.

“She surprised people,” her agent Max Eisenbud said Friday, “because everybody has this stigma of what a Chinese athlete is or should be or should look like. And here she is with a tattoo and an earring on the top of her ear. There was a little bit of the maverick about her, and you don’t really expect that. Her personality, even her feistiness, she was very real.”

It was hardly a given that Li would be the first Chinese woman to become a tennis superstar. Frustrated with the rigid national training system, she retired for the first time at 20 to go to college and live unfettered with her future husband, Jiang Shan. And though she later became the first Chinese player to win a WTA singles title, ticking that box in 2004, Zheng Jie, a sturdy and smaller counterpuncher who plays on at 31, blazed a few trails of her own.

Zheng and Yan Zi became the first Chinese women to win a Grand Slam doubles title in 2006 at the Australian Open. And in 2008, Zheng, as a 133rd-ranked wild card at Wimbledon, became the first Chinese player to reach a Grand Slam singles semifinal.

But Li ultimately won the biggest prizes first, with the help of European coaching, and had the personality to make it doubly memorable.

“I think it was because of the whole package,” Eisenbud said. “If Peng Shuai or Zheng Jie would have done the same thing, I honestly don’t think it would have been the same.”

We will never know, and though the natural conclusion is that young Chinese players inspired by Li will soon be holding up more major trophies, there are no guarantees. Germany once ruled the tennis world and marketplace with Graf and Boris Becker only to see the sport all but disappear from the radar in a hurry. Since Yao’s retirement, Chinese players are hardly taking the N.B.A. by storm.