Paula Badosa’s 2026 season ended in tears. She was sitting in her chair in Hong Kong with a blood pressure cuff around her arm and tears running down her face, and a few minutes later she was walking off court for the last time this year.

The Spaniard was playing Elena Pridankina in the first round of the Hong Kong Open on Tuesday. Pridankina, a lucky loser ranked No. 206, had only made the main draw because someone else pulled out. The former world No. 2 was supposed to play compatriot Kaitlin Quevedo in the first round, but she withdrew due to exhaustion, reaching the semifinal in Guangzhou, the same tournament where Badosa exited in the quarterfinal. 

Badosa raced to a 4-1 lead in the opening set and seemed to find her rhythm, but it slowly came crashing down. Pridankina broke back in the seventh game, held for 5-5, and broke again in the 11th to take the set 7-5. The Spaniard called the medical team, who checked her blood pressure and vital signs at the changeover. After the assessment, she decided she could not go on and retired, leaving the court in tears.

No official explanation was given, but it looked like the dehydration and low blood pressure issues kicked in again, as they had in Guangzhou as well. The two episodes came less than a week apart.

In Guangzhou last Friday, Badosa was the fifth seed and faced British qualifier Harriet Dart in the quarterfinals. She won the first set 6-3 and was up by a break in the second set when the heat took over. The temperature rose above 86 degrees Fahrenheit. She took a medical timeout midway through the second set, had her blood pressure checked, and came close to fainting at one stage. 

The heat rule gave both players a 10-minute break after the second set, and Badosa played on to the finish. Dart won 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 and went on to lift her first WTA title, beating stylish left-hander Lilli Tagger in Sunday’s final. 

Two matches, two medical checks, and two defeats from winning positions is not a pleasant end to a year that already put her to the test.

A season of stops and starts for Paula Badosa

Hong Kong was Badosa’s third retirement of 2026. She retired against Elina Svitolina in Dubai early in the year. The most painful came in July, in the Iasi Open final against Mayar Sherif. Badosa had won nine straight matches to reach there, and the streak had vaulted her from No. 115 to No. 93, putting her in direct qualification for the US Open.

She finally succumbed in the finale. The 28-year-old called a medical timeout at 0-3 in the second set, and stopped shortly thereafter. Speaking after the final, she reflected on how quickly the month had turned.

 “One month ago I was in one of the worst losing streaks of my career,” she said. 

The Iasi title would have lifted her to No. 75, but she left Romania with the runner-up cheque instead. Badosa wraps up 2026 with a 29-23 mark and outside the top 50. 

She also goes into the off-season without a coach. Pol Toledo, with whom she had been working for almost four years, announced their separation after Beijing, and she has been travelling without a full-time coach since.

Her body has been a cause of conflict for years. She had a stress fracture in her spine in Rome in 2023 and had to end her season the following summer after her back broke again at Wimbledon. The back issues continued through 2024 and surfaced again in Berlin in 2025 when she retired from a quarter-final and then missed the entire North American hardcourt swing, which included the US Open. 

Yet the same stretch also showed what she can still do. In January 2025, she reached her first Grand Slam semifinal at the Australian Open and returned to the top 10. At her peak, she was world No. 2 in April 2022, with four career titles to her name, including Indian Wells in 2021. That is the player her supporters are still waiting to see again. 

Badosa turns 29 on November 15 and has the rest of the season to rest, rebuild, and find a new team before the start of 2027. The talent has never been the question when it comes to the Spaniard, but the challenge always remains whether she can manage her body to be available for the entire season or long enough to make an impact.