Will China find another Li Na?

First and foremost, it must be said that, while tennis is one of the most difficult competitive sports to master, it is also quite accessible in terms of the ease of learning the basics.

It is an ideal sport for physical education because it combines endurance with strategy, and it is easy for instructors to pair pupils of similar ability with one another. Prodigies will make themselves known very quickly if they are given the environment for their skills to flourish.

Furthermore, it is clear that the government and sports officials understand the huge amount of unlocked potential out there in terms of tennis talent. Tournaments like the Shanghai Masters, along with the China, Wuhan, Shenzhen and Tianjin Opens are all held here each year with considerable government support and garnering significant enthusiasm from the public.

There appear to be growing efforts to scout young talents as well, but this is an ongoing project and much work remains to be done in this regard.

China should be looking for promising male and female talent throughout the country, but authorities should temper their expectations in terms of male talent in the next few years.

The reason for this lies in the differences between the current state of the men's and women's circuits that make the women's side a far more hospitable place to would-be newcomers.

The women's circuit is generally far more volatile and unpredictable than the men's tour at the moment. Young, promising upstarts routinely upset established names in the WTA with a frequency that we just don't see on the ATP side. This means that there are many more chances for newcomers to make a mark in the WTA than in the ATP.

This is not to say that it would be impossible for a Chinese male to make a splash on the ATP tour, but he would certainly have a great deal more work cut out for him given the number of strong, dominant names that would stand in his way. On the men's side, China is almost certainly looking at a decade-long slog to tennis glory.

But on the women's side, there is more promise in the short term. So will we see another Li Na emerge in the next few years?

The answer to that question can and should absolutely be "yes." In fact, there are probably some future Li Na's already out there.

But the question that remains to be answered is this: will we be able to find her and get a racket in her hand in time?