BEIJING — Following are China's top ten sports news in 2011 selected by Xinhua:

1. Li Na made history in January by becoming the first Chinese and Asian tennis player to enter a Grand Slam singles final at Australian Open.

Later in June, she notched the first-ever grand slam singles title for China and Asia, beating defending champion Francesca Schiavone of Italy 6-4, 7-6 (0) in the French Open final.

2. Four-time Winter Olympic champion Wang Meng was expelled from the Chinese national short track speedskating team in August after a drunken brawl with team manager during a camp in Qingdao in July.

3. The "Gentle Giant" Yao Ming announced his retirement as a professional basketball player in July in Shanghai. The 2.26-meter Shanghai native, who played eight seasons in the NBA after Houston Rockets chose him as the top overall pick in the 2002 draft, has been plagued with a series of injuries. The 31-year-old averaged 19 points and 9.2 rebounds and has been named to the NBA All-star team eight times.

4. Chinese swimmer Sun Yang won the men's 1,500m freestyle gold medal with a new world record at the 14th FINA World Championships in Shanghai this July. Sun clocked a winning time of 14:34.14, beating the world record of 14:34.56 set by Australian Grant Hackett on July 29, 2001.

Chinese divers also stunned the pool by sweeping all of the ten diving gold medals on offer during the FINA worlds.

5. Shenzhen hosted the largest-ever World University Games which was opened in August, attracting some 12,000 student athletes, coaches and officials from 152 countries and regions.

6. The Chinese government published the 2010 National Physical Fitness Evaluation Report in September. The two-and-a-half years evaluation process indicated that 88.9 percent of Chinese residents meet the fitness standards while overweighting rate continued to rise.

7. China won the men's team gold medal of the 2011 Gymnastics World Championships for the fifth time in a row in October.

8. Beijing Olympic weightlifting champion Liao Hui was suspended by the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) till September 30, 2014 for alleged violation of doping rules. The 24-year-old, winner of the men's 69-kilogram category at the Beijing Olympics, was on the suspended list released by the IWF on its official website.

9. Guangdong Hongyuan lifted the seventh CBA trophy for the fourth consecutive year after a 4-2 aggregate win over Xinjiang Guanghui in the best-of seven series of Chinese Basketball Association league (CBA) play-off finals.

As American National Basketball Association(NBA) facing bumps en route to labor agreement, dozens of former NBA players and coaches joined CBA, leading to a "hottest" CBA season ever since the launching of league foundation in 1995.

10. Trials for corruption in Chinese soccer started in December, with dozens of former players, referees, club owners and officials from the Chinese Football Association (CFA) facing court in China's Liaoning province.