Drained Gauff Withdraws from Wuhan Open After Beijing Exit

Coco Gauff's difficult Asian swing is over. The American has withdrawn from the Wuhan Open, where she was due to defend her title, announcing on Wednesday that she needs time to rest after an exhausting week in Beijing.

Gauff said she was disappointed to miss Wuhan but that her body needed a break after a long season, and that she looks forward to returning next year. The decision came just hours after her 6-3, 6-3 fourth-round defeat to Belgium's Elise Mertens at the China Open, a match in which she was visibly running on empty. Trailing in the second set, she told her team she had no energy left, could barely track the ball, and felt she might pass out.

It was a flat performance by her own standards: eight double faults, 34 unforced errors, and four dropped service games against an opponent she had beaten five times out of five before. The defeat was her first in straight sets since February and handed Mertens a third top-10 win of the year.

The physical collapse capped a draining week off the court too. Gauff was at the centre of a fierce online row after her third-round win over 16-year-old Chinese home hope Sun Xinran, when she stopped a rally late in the first set over what she believed was a hindrance from the advertising boards. The backlash included racist abuse that she publicly condemned.