The U.S. Open was rained out today, pushing both women's semifinals as well as the continuation of a Thursday night men's quarterfinal to Saturday.
The rain also means that at least the men's final will be played on Monday instead of Sunday for the second year in a row.
According to Chris Widmaier, a spokesman for the Open, beginning at 9 a.m. PDT Saturday, third-seeded Rafael Nadal and 11th-seeded Fernando Gonzalez will try to complete their quarterfinal that was stalled on Thursday night when the rain first began. Nadal is leading 7-6 (4), 6-6, 3-2 in the tiebreak.
However, the forecast calls for rain through at least 11 a.m. PDT on Saturday.
The rest of the Saturday schedule is tentatively to have the men's doubles final after the Nadal-Gonzalez match, followed by the women's semifinal between ninth-seeded Caroline Wozniacki and Yanina Wickmayer followed by, no earlier than 5 p.m. PDT, the second women's semifinal between second-seeded and defending champion Serena Williams and former No. 1-ranked Kim Clijsters.
This would all be on the Arthur Ashe Stadium court and holders of tickets for Friday's session will have their tickets honored Saturday.
Saturday's tennis would all be shown on CBS.
The rest of the schedule is less certain.
There is likely to be a men's semifinal on Sunday that would not be televised by CBS, which has its opening NFL slate of games. Widmaier said discussions were being held with both ESPN and Tennis Channel.
That would be followed by the second men's semifinal to begin at 1:30 p.m. PDT and then the women's final about 6 p.m. PDT. Widmaier said Open officials were in discussions with CBS about whether the network would televise an evening women's final.
The men's final will be Monday at a time still to be determined on will be on CBS. Last year's Monday final between Roger Federer and Andy Murray began at 2 p.m. PDT.
On Friday morning, the plan had been for Williams and Clijsters to play at 9:30 a.m. PDT with Nadal and Gonzalez next and then Wozniacki and Wickmayer as the third match on the Arthur Ashe Stadium court.
As the bad weather stretched into afternoon, the schedule changed to have Williams and Clijsters at Ashe; Nadal and Gonzalez at Louis Armstrong stadium and Woziacki and Wickmayer at the Grandstand Court simultaneously.
But by 2 p.m. PDT, with the rain still falling, it was announced the women wouldn't play at all today and that if Nadal and Gonzalez continued, it would be at Ashe. At 3 p.m. Nadal and Gonzalez were released from the grounds.
Last year, Nadal's semifinal against Andy Murray was moved from Ashe to Armstrong when the remnants of a tropical storm were predicted to cause trouble. After a mid-match postponement, Nadal and Murray finished their semifinal on Sunday at Ashe, and Murray won.
