NEW YORK — Rafael Nadal, Andy Roddick and Andy Murray got in about 15 minutes of tennis Wednesday — barely enough to work up a sweat, but more than enough to get into a snit.
Rain washed out the matches for the second consecutive day at the U.S. Open, creating a logjam in the schedule and a bigger mess in the locker room, where the big-name players questioned the wisdom of putting them out on courts that were still damp thanks to a fine mist that was falling in the morning. Shortly after they started, play was called, then late in the afternoon, the men were sent home.
Much later, and right after Serena Williams warmed up for her match against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the U.S. Tennis Association finally scrubbed the women’s matches, calling everyone back for an 9 a.m. MDT start today, when the weather forecast is every bit as dodgy — an 80 percent chance of rain.
“Right now, it’s our intention to finish the tournament on time,” said tournament director Jim Curley, while acknowledging all the things working against that possibility.
When play was halted, they marched straight into the tournament referee’s office to discuss the situation.
“If you know you’re going to go on court only for 10 minutes, you don’t have to lie to the fans at that point, and you don’t have to lie to the players, too,” said Nadal, the defending champion who trailed unseeded Gilles Muller 3-0 when play was stopped. “The players knew when we (went) on court that it was still raining, so it was a very strange decision, and we were upset about that.”
Nadal conceded he let his reluctance get to him, which played into a pair of double-faults in his opening service game and his early 3-0 deficit.
