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Ann Li has spoken out after Emma Raducanu was forced to retire from their first-round clash at the Wuhan Open. Li had a commanding 6-1 4-1 lead when Raducanu called the doctor and had a medical evaluation on the court and retired citing dizziness.

The world No. 46 is now through to the second round to face ninth seed Ekaterina Alexandrova, and she admitted that she could tell Raducanu was struggling as their match went on.

While Raducanu was clearly grappling with the hot, humid conditions in Wuhan, Li produced an impressive performance. She came back from an early break down in the first set, winning six games in a row and hitting 13 errors to just three from Raducanu.

The American raced into a double-break lead in set two before Raducanu called the medical team to the court. They took her vitals and, after a brief chat, the world No. 30 shook her head, signalling that she could not continue.

Li has now admitted that she could tell Raducanu was in trouble, but she was still happy with her own game, whether or not her opponent was hindered.

"Yeah, I was very stable the whole match, super aggressive. Stuck to my game plan very well," the 25-year-old said.

"And yeah, I hope she feels better. I don't know what happened, but yeah, you could tell towards the end she was maybe not moving as much. But yeah, for me, it was a good match."

Li also sent her well-wishes to Raducanu during her on-court interview, telling the crowd: "First I want to wish Emma a fast recovery, not sure but it looked like she wasn't feeling good.

"We had a tough match last time we played so I knew it was going to be tough but hopefully she feels better, but I'm happy with my performance, was able to stay pretty solid the entire match."

Raducanu herself might have expected to struggle in the bruising conditions. One day before her match, she shared a screenshot of the temperature in Wuhan on her Instagram Threads account, which showed that it was 34 degrees Celsius, but 'felt like' 37.

The heat rule was in effect when Raducanu faced Li on Tuesday, which would have allowed for a 10-minute off-court break between the second and third sets, had they gotten that far.

Although it didn't end how either player would have hoped, Li still managed to get some revenge over Raducanu, who came from a set down to beat her in Eastbourne over the summer.