GABRIELLA Taylor’s Junior Wimbledon campaign has ended in disappointment after she was forced to retire from her girls’ singles quarter-final due to illness.

It was originally thought that the Southampton teenager had been suffering from a bout of food poisoning which kept her awake throughout Tuesday night, although she managed to regroup in time to win her third round match yesterday.

Today, however, was a different story. Taylor woke suffering from stomach cramps and running a fever high enough for Wimbledon’s on-call doctor to be called, writes Spencer Vignes.

Although she decided to start her quarter-final against the number five seed Kayla Day of the USA, it was immediately clear that all was far from well.

Appearing flat-footed, sluggish and moving uncharacteristically slowly, she did well just to stay in the first set which the American clinched 6-4.

Then at 1-1 in the second Taylor decided she could continue no more, indicating to the umpire that she wanted to retire.

She left the court in tears to be consoled by fellow British junior Francesca Jones who had been watching from the stands and her coach Eric Scherer.

“She had a 38 degree fever this morning and couldn’t even do a proper warm up,” said Scherer who spoke afterwards on Taylor’s behalf.

“It’s some kind of virus that has come at the worst possible time.

"I’m surprised she tried to play at all but that’s what she wanted to do, to give it a go.

"It’s a big shock, having to pull out of a Grand Slam quarter-final that she had a very good chance of winning. It’s going to hurt her for a few days, to be sure.”

Taylor’s retirement was all the crueller because her excellent form of late made her one of the favourites for the Junior Wimbledon girls’ singles title.

She won her first three matches here in straight sets, conceding just 10 games in the process.

It’s also not the way that Taylor wanted to say goodbye to her career as a junior player.

From now onwards the 18-year-old will compete on the main women’s tour with the aim of returning to Wimbledon next year in the ladies’ singles.

“She’s going to have a break now for a few days, then we’ll go into a training block after which we will look at what tournaments to play,” added Scherer.

“She needs to get her energy back and improve on a few things. But otherwise she’s doing fine.

"She’s improving as a player. She’s learning how to be a better athlete. That’s important – it’s not only hitting the ball. Let’s hope she’s keeping it up.”