Yibing Wu experienced a very scary situation during his Wimbledon matchup against Frances Tiafoe struggling to breathe with an abnormally high heart rate.
Wu was once a very promising youngster but the Chinese player dealt with a lot of injuries that ultimately almost destroyed his career. He overcame them and started a slow rise in the past few years that culminated with some impressive showings last year.
They continued this year as he became the first Chinese player to win an ATP trophy by beating John Isner in the Dallas Open final earlier this year. A few months later, he made it to Wimbledon where he had a very difficult first-round match.
It was a heated battle against Frances Tiafoe, too much of a heated battle as Wu stopped playing with breathing issues. He was checked out by the doctor who measured an extremely high heart rate of 187 causing concern.
He was taken off the court for additional checkups where he, according to ESPN, collapsed. According to the same report, the issue was a known one to the Chinese player who experienced skipped beats along with his breathing issues.
Despite the issues, Wu opted to continue the match after a long 15-minute medical timeout to the surprise of many present. Tiafoe himself wasn't aware of what was going on as he waited and wondered whether the match would continue.
It did as the Chinese player produced a solid effort to make the match interesting. In the end, Tiafoe won the match to advance and talked about the situation in the press conference.
I mean, no, I had no idea what was going on. I was just, I was like, man, this is wild. Then he, yeah, he told me that his heart was skipping a beat. Having problems with his heart and stuff.
Felt like he was collapsing in there. He's like, I'm gonna try and play. Once he said that, I was like, Oh, we're about to have a war. He's going to start coming out and playing loose, which we did.
He is now one match closer to his stated goal which is to win Wimbledon.
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