Coco Gauff’s China Open Ends in Defeat to Elise Mertens a Day After She Condemned ‘Insane’ Racist Abuse

BEIJING — Coco Gauff’s China Open came to a listless end on Wednesday when Elise Mertens beat the American world No. 4 6-3, 6-3 in the fourth round in Beijing, a result that arrived a day after Gauff said she had been subjected to what she described as an “insane” amount of racist abuse online following her previous match, according to AFP and Sky Sports.

The 78-minute defeat was Gauff’s first loss to the Belgian in six meetings, and it ended the American’s bid to reclaim a tournament she won in 2024. Mertens, the 30-year-old world No. 19, played a near-flawless serving match and will now face Iga Swiatek in the quarter-finals after the Pole dismissed American teenager Iva Jovic 6-1, 6-3 earlier in the day, according to Flashscore and Sky Sports.

The numbers told the story of a player who was physically and mentally spent. Gauff dropped her serve four times, double-faulted eight times and committed 34 unforced errors against just 17 winners. Mertens, by contrast, hit two double faults and made only 11 unforced errors, winning 65 of the match’s 114 points, according to match statistics reported by Tennishead. The Belgian sealed victory with an ace on her second match point.

Late in the second set it was clear something was wrong beyond the tennis. With the match slipping away, Gauff spoke to her camp at a changeover and admitted she was running on empty. “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,” she told her team, according to the New York Post, adding that she would “just try to finish the match.”

Afterwards, the 22-year-old did not hide that the previous 48 hours had taken a toll. “It has been kind of draining, I’m not going to lie,” she told reporters, according to Sky Sports. “I just turn off my phone and move on. There’s nothing you can do.”

The abuse followed Gauff’s 7-5, 6-1 third-round victory on Tuesday over 16-year-old Chinese wildcard Sun Xinran, a match that turned controversial late in the first set. With the teenager seemingly about to win a point, Gauff stopped the rally after electronic advertising boards on the stadium flickered in the middle of the point, according to the New York Post and Sky Sports. The chair umpire ordered the point to be replayed, a decision that drew boos from the home crowd.

Gauff went on to win comfortably, but the fallout online was swift and, by her own account, ugly. Early on Tuesday, the American posted on X to condemn the response. “Hey everyone, you can dislike me or disagree about what happened without being racist,” she wrote, according to AFP, adding that “the amount of racist comments and messages I’ve received in the last few hours is insane.” She was responding to at least one post that contained a racial slur, and she clarified that she had challenged the point before Sun’s return after noticing the lights flicker a second time.

Neither the WTA nor the China Open immediately responded to AFP’s requests for comment on the abuse.

Mertens, for her part, produced one of the cleanest performances of the tournament to spring the upset. The Belgian had never beaten Gauff in five previous attempts, and she had never previously reached the quarter-finals in Beijing — a fact she noted afterwards with evident delight, according to Tennishead. She dedicated the win to her coach, who is also her boyfriend. “I know she won this tournament in the past; I’ve never been to the quarter-finals here, but I love Beijing,” Mertens said, according to Tennishead.

The result continues a strong Beijing record for Gauff: the American won the title in 2024 and reached the semi-finals in 2025, where she lost to Amanda Anisimova, according to Tennishead. Her quarter-final opponent would have been Swiatek, who looked in ominous form in dispatching Jovic in one hour and 35 minutes. Instead, Mertens gets that assignment, and the Belgian will need every bit of Wednesday’s serving level — she won 80 percent of points on her first serve — to trouble the Pole.

For Gauff, attention now turns to Wuhan, where the WTA’s Asian swing continues. The Wuhan Open begins on Tuesday, October 13, and Gauff is the defending champion there, having beaten Jessica Pegula in last year’s final, according to Tennishead. She will arrive short on rest and carrying the residue of an emotionally bruising week — though she has a history of responding to setbacks on this stretch of the calendar: her Beijing title in 2024 came in a season in which she frequently spoke about managing the mental grind of the tour.

The episode also puts tennis’s recurring problem with online abuse back in the spotlight. Gauff is one of the most prominent Black athletes in world sport, and her experience in Beijing followed the now-familiar pattern: a flashpoint moment on court, amplified by video clips on social media, spiralling into targeted racial harassment. The WTA has in the past issued statements condemning abuse of players and has worked with platforms on monitoring, but the organisation had not commented publicly on Gauff’s case by the time the fourth round was over, according to AFP.

Why It Matters

There are two stories inside this result, and they pull in different directions. The first is a straightforward tennis upset: Elise Mertens played the match of her tournament, served brilliantly and finally solved a player who had owned her. That is how the WTA 1000 events are supposed to work — depth everywhere, no safe passage for even the top seeds, and a 30-year-old veteran seizing the biggest win of her season. The Belgian’s first Beijing quarter-final, set up with such composure, is a career highlight in its own right and deserves to be remembered as more than a footnote.

The second story is the one that will linger. Gauff did not lose this match only because Mertens was better on the day, though she was; she lost it, by her own account, carrying the weight of two days of racial abuse into a match against a top-20 opponent. Eight double faults and 34 unforced errors are the statistical signature of a player whose mind is elsewhere — and Gauff said as much, describing herself as drained and barely able to see the ball. The sport asks its stars to compartmentalise; this week showed the limits of that demand.

There is also an institutional question here that the WTA cannot keep deferring. When a player reports receiving racist abuse “in the last few hours” and the tour’s governing body has no immediate public response, the silence becomes part of the story. Tennis has moved faster on some welfare issues in recent years — protected rankings, maternity provisions, expanded mental-health resources — but online harassment remains the area where the gap between rhetoric and reality is widest. Gauff’s decision to speak out on X, rather than wait for the machinery to act, tells you what she thinks of that machinery.

What to watch next is concrete. Gauff defends her Wuhan title from October 13, which means the rankings points she earned there last year are all at risk; a flat week in Beijing already puts her under pressure to perform. Watch whether the WTA issues any statement about the Beijing abuse before Wuhan begins — and whether tournament organisers in China take any visible step beyond the replayed point that started this. And watch Mertens against Swiatek: the Belgian has momentum and a serve that was untouchable on Wednesday, but the Pole is hunting titles with the intensity of a player who knows exactly what is at stake in the season’s final stretch.

Sources

• Sky Sports
• Flashscore (AFP reporting)
• NY Post