Bah
this really sucks.I think we have to give credit to Li as she played well and was the better player on the day. Li hit some great crosscourt shots and she got some incredible angles on some of them. So she either got winners, forced an error from Daniela or got Daniela out of position so Li had an open court to hit into. Daniela did hit a lot of good winners and won some nice points after she played a good rally but Li was very good, especially in the third set.
I wonder how different the match would have been if Daniela had put away that smash at 5-5 in the first set. Daniela just had to hit it forward and it would have been a winner put she wanted to put it crosscourt where Li was going to cover and because of that Daniela put it wide. It was a crucial point in that game and if Daniela had won it she'd have been in a good position to win the game and the probably the set, but instead Li was serving for it.
It helped Li a lot that she was serving first in the third set and she also had a bit of momentum from her fight back at the end of the second set. If Daniela had been able to break Li for the second, served it out first time or taken an earlier set point then she could have had more momentum for the third but it was a struggle to close it out so Li felt competitive plus she was serving first which is a big advantage in women's tennis.
Daniela got screwed by some of the line calls at 3-1 in the third and she didn't have too much luck on net cords in the match either. Hawkeye would have been nice.
There is still the mixed doubles and Daniela can get revenge in the Fed Cup.
The same issues are still present and it is not going to change. Without better defense/movement or more powerful groundgame she stays where she is now and I am skeptical that she can do much about it, considering she looks even thinner than last year.