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  Wed, September 7, 2011

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Rain wreaks havoc at Open, again
By Sports Network


A fan sits under an umbrella after rain delayed play at the U.S. Open in New York, on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2011. (REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi)

NEW YORK - For the second time in two days, rain prevented the men and women from completing any matches at the 2011 U.S. Open.

Three men's fourth-round matches were staged for about 15 minutes on Wednesday before wet weather forced tournament officials to call off play for a second straight day. Players never even took to the courts here on Tuesday, and Wednesday's schedule was supposed to feature two quarterfinal matches and four fourth-round affairs.

Second-seeded and defending U.S. Open champion Rafael Nadal was trailing Luxembourg's Gilles Muller 0-3 in the first set, while unseeded American Donald Young was ahead of fourth-seeded 2008 U.S. Open runner-up Andy Murray 2-1, and 21st-seeded former champion Andy Roddick was leading fifth-seeded Spaniard David Ferrer 3-1 when players were forced to leave the court, following a lengthy rain delay that started the day at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

A fourth-rounder between 12th-seeded Frenchman Gilles Simon and 28th-seeded 6-foot-9 American John Isner never started on Day 10.

The quarterfinal bouts that were spoiled on Wednesday were to pit world No. 1 Novak Djokovic against 20th-seeded fellow Serb Janko Tipsarevic and third- seeded five-time U.S. Open champ Roger Federer versus 11th-seeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Djokovic is an amazing 61-2 this year, including Wimbledon and Australian Open titles, while the 16-time major titlist Federer was this year's French Open runner-up to his fellow former No. 1 Nadal, who bested Djokovic in last year's finale in Flushing.

All four women's quarterfinal matches were scheduled to take place at night after the plug was pulled on the men's matches.

Tournament officials decided around 8:30 p.m. that there would be no tennis for the women either due to worsening conditions with no projected breaks in the rain through the remainder of the evening.

World No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki was scheduled to take on 10th-seeded Andrea Petkovic, second-seeded Vera Zvonareva was slated to play ninth-seeded Samantha Stosur, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the No. 17 seed, was set to battle American Serena Williams and 26th-seed Flavia Pennetta was going to play Angelique Kerber.

Rain is also in the forecast for Thursday, which will be a busy day in New York. The men will finish out the fourth round and play two quarterfinal matches, while the women play all four quarterfinal matches.












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