Blood samples collected, vitals checked: Croatian tennis star suffers mid-game health scare during Chennai Open

Donna Vekic suffered a health scare during the opening round of the Chennai Open WTA 250 event in Chennai on Wednesday, with the Croatian tennis star having her blood samples collected and vitals checked during her opening round meeting against Vaishnavi Adkar.

The worrying development took place after Vekic, who had won silver in the Paris Olympics last year, took the first set rather easily with a 6-1 scoreline, with the medical intervention holding up play for an extended period of time, according to The Daily Express.

Vekic’s health issues appeared to be the result of Chennai’s testing weather. While the Tamil Nadu capital isn’t as hot as it gets at the height of summer, the humidity – hovering around the 80-90 per cent mark – is proving to be a challenge for players to deliver their best performance, especially European players for whom temperatures above the 30 degrees Celsius could be described as scorching.

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Medical time out for Donna Vekic

Issue with the heat, doctor called

Vaishnavi Adkar to serve next at 1-1 in set 2 pic.twitter.com/ZgGUv39khk

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Chennai weather forces British star to retire

The testing conditions, after all, took a toll on Britain’s Francesca Jones, who retired after losing the opening game of the deciding set in her Round of 32 clash against Japan’s Mei Yamaguchi. While Jones took the opening set 7-5, Yamaguchi bounced back with a bagel in the second, and had drawn first blood in the decider when the Briton decided she couldn’t continue any further.

That, however, wasn’t the case with Vekic, who returned to action after eating some chocolate and went on to win the second set against Vadkar to register a dominant 6-1 6-2 victory and advance to the next round.

She faces another Indian – 25-year-old Sahaja Yamalapalli who’s the current Indian No 1 in the WTA ladder at 344th – in the Round of 16. Yamalapalli had defeated Indonesia’s Priska Nugroho in the first round 6-4 6-2 on Wednesday.

The weather, meanwhile, isn’t expected to get any better this week, with the maximum temperature set at 32 degrees Celsius and the humidity expected to hover around 76 per cent.

Action at the Chennai Open, meanwhile, had been suspended for a couple of days due to Cyclone Montha, which made landfall along the country's eastern coast on Tuesday evening and has left at least one person dead.