Watch: Li Na’s New Seven-Minute Film for MasterCard is a Tearjerker

Two-time major champion and soon to be International tennis Hall of Famer (you heard it here first) Li Na is featured in a new extended MasterCard advertisement that marks a breakthrough acting performance for the former star.The seven-minute short film, directed by Peter Chan, features Li starring as herself, the director of a famous tennis academy, and weaves in flashbacks of her past from her playing days to her formative years with her father.Giving the narrative perspective is a chance meeting with her father in which Li tells him: “I used to think that tennis was hard, but now I feel that life is even harder.”

Want a sneak peek at Li Na’s commercial with Mastercard, directed by Chinese film director Peter Chan?Chan will also be directing Li Na’s upcoming movie.📺: https://t.co/ijkL802CUt#IMGTennis pic.twitter.com/mkymLmfGst

— IMG Tennis (@IMGTennis) October 23, 2018

Li’s father, Li Shengpeng, was a former professional badminton player that passed away when Li was just 14. Li was playing a tournament at the time and her coach and family elected not to tell her until several days later so as not to affect her performance on the court.“It is my deepest pain that I did not make it to say goodbye to him,” she later reflected in her autobiography.If you were moved to tears by this film—seriously, how could you not be?—you can look forward to a full-length biopic about Li Na, also directed by Peter Chan, out in the not too distant future.“Everything about Li is fascinating,” Chan told Variety, “from the way that she shows her emotions, her temper, the way she called the shots with the press and her husband. But Li also endured a lot of difficult stages in her life, notably bad debt and having to learn to manage her own team. This is really a story of achieving independence on her own terms and I related to it very personally.”— By Chris Oddo