Though her success at the WTA level of the game has so far fallen short of the stellar heights, achieved by some of her Chinese contemporaries such as Peng Shuai, Li Na, Zheng Jie, Sun Tiantian and Yan Zi, she has come close enough at times for future hope of stronger results to justifiably abide.

In January 2002, she won back-to-back $10k tournaments in the UK, at Hull and Tipton, but suffered mixed results for the remainder of the year, losing in numerous quarter-finals and semifinals, and finished it world-ranked slighter lower, at 297.

2003 was a relatively poor year for Liu as a singles player until December, when she reached the quarterfinal of a $50k tournament at Shenzhen with a clean run of five straight sets wins in qualifying and the main draw, only to cede victory to Zheng Jie by default.

In July, she came through qualifying to reach the semifinal at another $50k tournament, at Lexington, Kentucky with wins over Shikha Uberoi, Rika Fujiwara and Aiko Nakamura.

She was destined to lose her opening match at four of the next five events she entered, the only exception being a $50k tournament at Beijing in June, where she reached the semifinal before conceding a walkover to Li Ting.