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Britain’s Emma Raducanu has withdrawn from her final two events of the year because of the illness she has been battling over the past 10 days.

The 22-year-old was due to play in Tokyo and Hong Kong but has decided to fly home to recover before starting her preparations for 2026.

Those preparations will include coach Francisco Roig, as the pair have agreed to work together again next season.

Raducanu had her blood pressure taken during her first-round match with Ann Li in Wuhan last week and retired when trailing 6-1 4-1 on an oppressively humid day.

She again required a visit from the doctor at this week’s Ningbo Open, where she lost in three sets to Chinese wildcard Zhu Lin in the opening round.

Raducanu was also moving far from freely in the deciding set against Zhu because of the lower back problem that has troubled her at times this year.

Those results meant an encouraging season, in which Raducanu rose into the world’s top 30 for the first time in more than three years, ended with three successive defeats.

Raducanu won 28 matches this year and reached the semi-finals in Washington, but her most impressive week was at the Miami Open in March.

The British number one reached the quarter-finals of the WTA 1000 event, beating eighth seed Emma Navarro on the way before losing in three sets to fourth-ranked Pegula.

She was coached by Mark Petchey from Miami until Wimbledon, with Roig taking over in time for the US Open.

The initial agreement with Rafael Nadal’s former coach was until the end of the season but the partnership will continue, with a training block pencilled in for the end of the year.

Raducanu told BBC Sport her three-day trial with Roig after Wimbledon was like a “black ops mission” as they tried to keep the meeting secret.

She came very close to beating world number one Aryna Sabalenka at their first tournament together in Cincinnati in August.

Three of the world’s top-rated racehorses – Ombudsman, Delacroix and Calandagan – have been confirmed to meet in a blockbuster Champion Stakes at Ascot on Saturday.

Ombudsman, number one in the rankings, swooped late to beat Delacroix (rated joint sixth) in the Coral-Eclipse Stakes before the tables were turned in the Juddmonte International – and the pair now meet for a third time.

King George winner Calandagan, who is joint ninth in the global rankings, joins them, along with last year’s Irish Champion Stakes winner Economics who races for the first time in a year.

The Champion Stakes headlines five top-level Group One contests on a seven-race card on Qipco British Champions Day – the country’s richest raceday with a total of £4.35m prize money on offer.

Ombudsman’s stablemate Field Of Gold will run in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes for trainer John Gosden, whose strong hand on the day also features Gold Cup victor Trawlerman in the Long Distance Cup.

Owners Godolphin ran a pacemaker to assist Ombudsman in the Juddmonte at York and do so again in the £1.3m Champion Stakes, with Devil’s Advocate supplemented at a cost of £75,000.

Field Of Gold was an impressive winner of the Irish 2,000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot before a surprise defeat in the Sussex Stakes, after which he was found to be lame.

Hoping to go one better in the QEII will be Rosallion, trained by Richard Hannon, after three narrow top-level defeats this year, while Karl Burke’s filly Fallen Angel comes into the race off a Group One hat-trick.

Kalpana, runner-up to Calandagan in the King George, is among the favourites in the Fillies and Mares Stakes having finished seventh in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

Andrew Balding, second in the British trainers’ championship behind Delacroix’s trainer Aidan O’Brien, saddles Kalpana while his other hopes include Almeric and Fox Legacy in the Champion Stakes and Never So Brave and Marvelman in the QEII.

“Ascot is a fantastic way to end the season at the world’s greatest racecourse,” he told BBC Radio Berkshire.

“It’s certainly been an amazing year for us and hopefully we can add to it on Saturday.”

DP World India Championship – first round

-7 K Nakajima (Jpn); -5 J Campillo (Spa); -4 J Luiten (Ned), N Elvira (Spa), B Griffin (US), M Schneider (Ger), M Kim (US), D Sheoran (Ind)

Selected others: -3 R McIlroy (NI), A Sullivan (Eng); -1 V Hovland (Nor)

Rory McIlroy carded an up-and-down first-round 69 in the DP World India Championship after deciding to leave his driver out of the bag.

Playing for the first time since helping Europe win the Ryder Cup in New York last month, McIlroy fired six birdies and three bogeys to sit four shots off Japan’s Keita Nakajima.

Despite opting for a safer approach off the tee, Northern Ireland’s McIlroy said he still found Delhi Golf Club trickier than expected.

“You’re just really trying to be as conservative as possible off the tee and then you’re trying to pick off birdies on the par-fives and then maybe pick up a couple more, but it’s a tricky golf course,” said the five-time major winner.

Starting at the 10th, McIlroy birdied his opening hole before slipping to back-to-back bogeys. He picked up shots on the par-fives 14th and 18th and gained three more shots on his back nine before a bogey six at the eighth.

The Masters champion said he has no plans to change his strategy off the tee.

“You just have to get the ball in the fairway,” he said.

“The rough is unpredictable. You get a lot of fliers like I did with the last two there.”

Nakajima carded eight birdies and one bogey in an impressive opening 65.

The 25-year-old, whose sole DP World Tour victory came at last year’s Indian Open, is two shots clear of Spain’s Jorge Campillo.

Playing with McIlroy, US Ryder Cup player Ben Griffin opened with a 68 while McIlroy’s European team-mate Viktor Hovland signed for a 71.