Victoria Azarenka collapsed and fell to the ground while chasing down a ball on the baseline and had to be taken off the court in a wheelchair Wednesday.
The 10th-seeded Belarusian was trailing Argentina’s Gisela Dulko 5-1 in the first set on the Grandstand court. The temperature had reached 90 degrees with 42 percent humidity by 11:30 a.m. On-court temperatures topped 100 degrees.
About an hour after the match was called, Azarenka’s agent confirmed that she had been taken to the hospital.
Initially, heat exhaustion was blamed for her collapse but it was later revealed that Azarenka suffered a mild concussion when she hit her head in a fall in the gymnasium earlier in the day.
Azarenka called for a trainer as early as the third game of her match against Dulko. Azarenka moved slowly throughout the match. Before serving the first point in the seventh game, she hesitated and winced in pain. After the point, she knelt down on the court for a few seconds.
Two points later, she stopped and crumbled to the ground. Medical personnel rushed to her side and after a few minutes Azarenka was helped into a wheelchair and moved off the court.
View video and more pics below:
Photo credit: PicApp