Tennis is a game that places great store by hierarchy. In this tournament, the women's natural order was threatened and undermined as rarely before. In Saturday night's final, Li Na was set up for the last and biggest fall, and at first she played as if the idea was oppressing her. Then she and the game came to their senses. Emphatically, in the end, Li Na put the record straight.

Li Na's reaction upon winning said it all. It was at about the level of a regulation second round win. She raised her racquet, but did not leap, twirl or swoon. She hugged Dominika Cibulkova, clasped hands with one or two in her contingent, but shed not one tear. She projected not elation, but relief. This tournament was a triumph for her, but not necessarily this night in isolation. Cibulkova cried. As much as she would be loath to admit it, just to make the final was her major.

This was as assymetrical a final as can be imagined. It was Nos 4 versus 24, previous major winner and three-time finalist versus unheralded maiden, crowd favourite - almost pet - versus a player who was barely in the conscious of the tennis-dwelling public a fortnight ago. Li Na was the good player with the dream draw, beating two 16-year-old qualifers and, as it transpired, no-one ranked higher than Cibulkova at 24 to win this title. Cibulkova was the plodder who somehow had to beat a French Open winner and four top 16 opponents even to make the final, and did.

Li Na had finely honed courtcraft and a fissile backhand. Cibulkova depended not on any one shot, but on dynamism, sputtering about the court like an escaped firecracker. Her name means "little onion", and for two weeks, she made the eyes of opponents of greater stature in all senses water.