Emma Raducanu retires ill in Wuhan Open first-round clash with Ann Li

Emma Raducanu exited the Wuhan Open after retiring due to illness in her first-round match against Ann Li.

Raducanu had won the pair’s only previous encounter on the Eastbourne grass in June and she began with a break of serve in the Chinese city, but that was as good as it got for the British number one.

She lost the next six games in a row, appearing devoid of energy, and after a similarly uncompetitive second set, Raducanu shook hands with Li following a medical timeout when trailing 6-1 4-1.

Dizziness was given as the reason for Raducanu’s retirement, and American Li said: “I hope she feels better. I don’t know what happened, but you could tell towards the end she was maybe not moving as much. But, for me, it was good match.”

It has been a tough past few weeks for Raducanu, the world number 30 who spurned match points against both Barbora Krejcikova and Jessica Pegula to lose in the Korea Open and China Open respectively.

The 2021 US Open champion insisted she was staying upbeat despite the twin setbacks and she made a bright start in Wuhan after breaking her American opponent in the opening game.

But Li hit straight back, held to love then broke Raducanu again after a couple of errors from the 22-year-old, who was already showing signs of feeling unwell, failing to chase down manageable returns.

She soldiered on to no avail, with a wild backhand wide handing Li the first set after 28 minutes although Raducanu held serve to start the second set despite making four double faults.

Raducanu had two break points but her unforced errors were piling up – there were 29 in total with just nine winners – and Li was able to hold before breaking twice more to establish a 4-1 lead.

With just over an hour on the clock, Raducanu called for the doctor and had her temperature and blood pressure taken before ruefully shaking her head, clearly out-of-sorts, as she pulled the plug on the contest.

Li, ranked 16 places below Raducanu at 46 in the world, will take on ninth seed Ekaterina Alexandrova in the second round.

The hot and humid conditions in China have caused problems for a number of players but 11th seed Naomi Osaka battled through a long match, defeating Leylah Fernandez 4-6 7-5 6-3.