The China Open suffers disastrous day midway through the tournament as fans seriously lose out

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The China Open has been struck with a huge blow midway through the tournament this year.

After the conclusion of the Grand Slam season, the China Open is one of the biggest events on the tennis calendar and features both the WTA and ATP Tours.

The lineup for the WTA event is particularly strong as a 1000 level tournament, featuring nearly all the top players apart from world number one Aryna Sabalenka, who withdrew from the China Open.

Despite all the things that appear to be going for the China Open, the tournament has now been dealt a big blow on day six of the tournament.

The China Open is struck by injury woes as one court has three very short matches

The China Open is held at the aptly named China National Tennis Center, which also played host to tennis at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, where Rafael Nadal won singles gold.

With it being a high level tournament, the show courts at the China Open can hold many spectators, with the Diamond Court holding 15,000 and the Lotus Court able to seat 10,000 people.

On day six of the 2025 China Open, the Lotus Court was set to feature some top stars including Iga Swiatek, Emma Navarro and world number one doubles team Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool.

However, things got off to a terrible start for fans waiting on that court, as Cash and Glasspool withdrew from their match before even taking to the court.

This appeared to set the tone of the day, as the next two matches were ended by retirement, as both Lois Boisson and Camila Osorio were unable to play more than one set after retiring due to injury.

As a result, it meant that fans on the Lotus Court only saw 85 minutes of tennis from the three matches they were expecting.

It is unclear as to whether fans who had tickets for this court will receive any sort of compensation, but they were thankfully dealt some luck and treated to a high quality battle between Emma Raducanu and Jessica Pegula.

Retirements at the China Open show that something needs to be done about the tennis schedule

Injury problems have been a big theme of the last couple of days at the China Open, with both Barbora Krejcikova and Paula Badosa retiring due to physical issues in their third round matches.

Injuries have not just been exclusive to the WTA draw in Beijing, with Jakub Mensik also retiring against Alex de Minaur in his quarterfinal match.

Many players including Swiatek have criticised the busy tennis calendar, and these retirements back up this point.

The packed calendar schedule has also impacted players not even competing in Beijing, with Jack Draper, Elina Svitolina and Beatriz Haddad Maia having already ended their seasons.

Of course tennis fans want to see their favourite players compete across the world, but it should not come at the expense of their welfare and the quality of the product.