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Fog and pollution blanketing northern China on Sunday, forcing international golf and tennis players to play in hazardous smog and leading to flight cancellations as millions of Chinese headed home from an extended national holiday.

On Beijing's biggest weekend of the year for sport, spectators at the China Open tennis tournament and an inaugural ladies golf tournament pulled their shirts up over their faces and used masks and bandanas to try to avoid the noxious air.

After overcoming the smog and Rafael Nadal to win his fourth China Open title, leading tennis player Novak Djokovic stated "it's not ideal in terms of pollution."

In a post-tournament news conference, the Serbian told reporters "we've been talking about the weather conditions, but it is what it is, it's something that has been the same for the last few years that I've been coming back here."

At the Reignwood LPGA Classic, the first Ladies Professional Golf Association event held in China, tee times were delayed to allow some of the smog to dissipate, but some players, including Germany's Sandra Gal, still donned masks.

In some areas of Beijing, visibility dropped to less than 500 metres on Saturday night and Sunday morning, according to the National Meteorological Centre. It said the haze hanging over a large area of northern China, including Hebei province, which neighbours Beijing, and the port city of Tianjin would persist until Monday afternoon.

The oppressive smog in the capital sparked a high pollution alert from the U.S. Embassy, which monitors air quality. In an email to American citizens, it said its readings had averaged more than 300 on its air quality index in the 24 hours beginning Friday evening and more than 400 overnight Saturday.

The smog came during one of China's peak travel times, the Golden Week holiday from 1st to 7th October, when hundreds of millions of Chinese travel.

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