Raducanu had won the pair’s only previous encounter on the Eastbourne grass in June <\/a>and she began with a break of serve in Central China, but that was as good as it got for the British No 1.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The relentless schedule of events has come in for plenty of criticism recently, with women\u2019s world No 2 Iga Swiatek admitting she finds the calendar overwhelming in an interview last month.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we play too much, and the schedule is crazy,\u201d said Swiatek. \u201cI try to divide the year into each part of the season and focus on what\u2019s coming up, otherwise, it\u2019s difficult.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter a four-week preseason and eight-day vacation, if I look at the end of December and see what awaits me over the next 11 months, it\u2019s overwhelming. It\u2019s best to take it step by step because the schedule is demanding and difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Emma Raducanu didn\u2019t look like herself before retiring from her match against Ann Li (AFP via Getty Images) open image in gallery<\/p>\n Li was dominating the first-round clash at the Wuhan Open (AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n World No 19 Daria Kasatkina<\/a> recently became the latest player to end her season early, joining the likes of Elina Svitolina and Beatriz Haddad Maia. \u201cThe truth is, I’ve hit a wall and can’t continue,\u201d the Russian-born Kasatkina, who now represents Australia, wrote on Instagram. \u201cThe schedule is too much, mentally and emotionally I am at breaking point and sadly, I am not alone.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, concurrent to the Wuhan Open, the men\u2019s tour is playing the Shanghai Masters in brutal conditions where extreme heat and humidity have taken a wrecking ball to the top seeds.<\/p>\n Jannik Sinner<\/a> is out after retiring from his third-round match <\/a>against Tallon Griekspoor due to painful cramp and that was the seventh retirement of the week in Shanghai, while Novak Djokovic only battled through after throwing up on court during his gruelling win over Yannick Hanfmann on Sunday. <\/p>\n Raducanu\u2019s retirement from the match against Li due to illness may or may not be related to fatigue but it is the latest blow in a tough few weeks for the world No 30 who spurned match points against both Barbora Krejcikova and Jessica Pegula to lose in the Korea Open and China Open respectively.<\/p>\n The 2021 US Open champion made a bright start in Wuhan after breaking her American opponent in the opening game but Li hit straight back, held to love and 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.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Raducanu showed signs of being ill from the first set (AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The Brit had two break points but her unforced errors were piling up \u2013 there were 29 in total with just nine winners \u2013 and Li was able to hold before breaking twice more to establish a 4-1 lead.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Additional reporting by PA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-195005","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Emma](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/SEI269352971.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Li](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/SEI269352951.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Raducanu](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/SEI269352950.jpeg\")
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