Novak Djokovic collapses on court at Shanghai Masters and gets his vitals checked | Tennis | Sport

Novak Djokovic was pushed to the limit physically during his round-of-16 match against Jaume Munar at the Shanghai Masters and even collapsed on court. The Serb struggled with the brutal heat and humidity and had his vitals checked during the third set changeover at the Masters 1000 tournament.

The 24-time Grand Slam winner took the first set against Munar, 6-3, but not without requiring a medical timeout at 3-1. He grimaced in pain and appeared to be suffering from a left leg injury which he struggled with even more in the second set. Television cameras had picked up Djokovic looking queasy, with the tennis icon then seen vomiting on court at 5-5 in set two. He gathered a towel to clean up the court himself, to save a ball kid doing it for him.

Spaniard Munar drew level by taking the set 7-5 with the 38-year-old Djokovic dropping to his haunches afterwards and lying flat on his back on the court.

It looked for all the money in the world that fourth seed Djokovic would retire, not least because the physio and the doctor were spotted checking his vitals, including his heart rate, in between sets.

But the Serb, incredibly, returned to the court and played through his problems despite looking exhausted. He ultimately came out on top of Munar with a 6-3, 5-7, 6-2 victory to reach the quarter-finals. Zizou Bergs, the 26-year-old Belgian, awaits him after a dramatic win against Gabriel Diallo.

That match is scheduled to take place tomorrow (Wednesday) and it remains to be seen if Djokovic can recover in time as he bids to win a 101st ATP Tour title.

Djokovic had opened up earlier this week about his struggles with the conditions in Shanghai, with the humidity having creeped close to the 80 per cent mark at times. On top of that, temperatures are still around 26 degrees even at 10pm local time.

On the sweltering temperatures, he said: “It’s the same for every player out on the court, but it’s brutal.

“It’s brutal when you have over 80 per cent of humidity day after day, particularly for the guys when they’re playing during the day with heat, with sun, it’s even more brutal. For me, biologically it’s a bit more challenging to deal with it. But I had to really weather the storm today. Yannick played an incredible match from the beginning.”