Coco Gauff felt like she was ‘going to pass out’ during China Open loss to Elise Mertens
· Yahoo Sports
It started with a shot that Coco Gauff just doesn’t miss.
After seven close games in her China Open fourth-round match against Elise Mertens, Gauff found herself down a break. Mertens was serving with a 4-3, 30-15 lead, but Gauff worked her way into a point and moved into the net for a routine overhead.
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Put it away and it would be 4-3, 30-30. Gauff would have an opportunity to put pressure on the Belgian No. 13 seed, who had never beaten Gauff in five attempts before Wednesday in Beijing.
Gauff swung at the ball. She connected at full power. And she sent it so far beyond the baseline that it nearly hit the back fence of the court on the full. Mertens held serve from there, winning what would become the second game in a six-strong run that took the match out of Gauff’s hands.
As the 22-year-old American faded, it became clear that she was unable to bring her usual game to the court. Losing 6-3, 4-1, Gauff told her camp: “I have no energy. I’m trying, I have no energy. I can’t see the ball, I feel like I’m going to pass out.
“I’m going to just try to finish the match.”
No one on Gauff’s team could be heard responding to her directly, and four games later the match was over. It ended in a 6-3, 6-3 defeat, Gauff’s first straight-sets loss since February and Mertens’ third top-10 win of 2026.
Gauff’s preparation for the match had already been disrupted. She received what she called an “insane” amount of racist abuse in the wake of her 7-5, 6-1 win over 16-year-old home hope Sun Xinran in the previous round — because she followed the rules of tennis on a single point late in the first set.
At almost 4 a.m. local time Tuesday morning, Gauff posted an explanation of why she had been correct to stop a point mid-rally for a potential hindrance because the advertising boards at the side of the court had changed as she hit a shot.
That explanation followed a separate post from Gauff — “You can dislike me or disagree about what happened without being racist. The amount of racist comments/dms I’ve received in the last few hours is insane. Lastly, I’m not a cheater or a thief” — which she posted in direct reply to an account that had used a racial slur against her.
Mertens will face 2023 China Open champion Iga Świątek in the quarterfinals, who was imperious in a 6-1, 6-3 win over rising American star Iva Jović to start the day in the Chinese capital. Gauff’s next scheduled tournament is the Wuhan Open, another WTA 1000 event, where she is the defending champion.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Tennis, Women's Tennis
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