“Do you want a player to die on court?” Holger Rune’s piercing question to the official captured the chaos unraveling at the Shanghai Masters . As temperatures soared to 34°C and humidity smothered the courts at 80%, exhaustion painted every rally with pain. Rune’s plea came as doctors and physios scrambled to keep players upright in conditions bordering on unbearable. The suffering stretched beyond Shanghai, 500 miles away at the Wuhan Open , Emma Raducanu collapsed to dizziness yesterday, and now Karolina Muchova has joined the casualty list, giving up mid-match. The Asian swing has become a survival test, where heat, humidity, and human limits clash under a punishing sun.

Under the blistering Wuhan heat, Karolina Muchova battled Magdalena Frech on Court Two in the Round of 3

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