The first Asian player, man or woman, to win a Grand Slam singles championship at the 2011 French Open, Li was forced to retire due to a knee injury, eight months after winning her second major in January 2014 at the Australian Open.

She left the court with nine WTA singles titles and an immeasurable impact on popularizing the sport in China.

After joking that lucrative prize money was her main motivation for playing so fiercely, Li says in the documentary that the loss of her father, who died of a rare heart condition when she was 14, drove her to be the best she could be.

To make sure Li concentrated on her training, her mother shielded her from the seriousness of her father's illness. A fleeting glance at the Wuhan train station when she was en route from Beijing to Guangzhou in 1996 was the last time Li saw him.

"If he was still alive then, probably I would not have worked so hard or been so desperate to excel in this sport," says an emotional Li who, inspired by her father, picked up badminton as her first sport at age 6.

"Plagued by such misfortune, I came to realize that only by playing well and winning matches could I support my family. That fire is still burning inside me."

In January it drove her to become the first and only Asian player inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame-an honor she feels flattered to receive.

"I am no hero or role model, just a Chinese tennis player, ordinary and diligent," Li says in the documentary. "I've come a long way to become my ideal self and to live a life that I've dreamed of."