Chennai: Intermittent rains since Friday morning in the city has thrown the schedule of matches in the Chennai Open ATP Tennis Championship in disarray.
When rain stopped play between top seed and world No 2 Rafael Nadal and Guilermo Garcia Lopez (both from Spain), 15 minutes after its start on Centre Court, Nadal was leading 2-1 while his compatriot was serving for the fourth game (40-15).
On the side court, Marin Cilic (Croatia) and Robin Haase (Netherlands) shared two games. Haase was down on advantage following a deuce.
Referring to the possibility of a restart of the match between Nadal and Guilermo Garcia-Lopez, Tournament Director Fernando Soler said that they would wait even past midnight for a restart.
"If the three matches remaining for the day cannot be restarted, all three matches will be played simultaneoulsy on three courts tomorrow morning. The respective semi-final matches in singles and doubles have been scheduled to be held tomorrow evening', he said.
With a goodly crowd braving the rain to watch the matches of Carlos Moya and Rafel Nadal (both of Spain), the organisers were able to go through the Carlos-Moya-Florent Serra (France) singles match with the former overwhelming Serra 6-3, 6-4.
A doubles match on the side courts resulted in Rajeev Ram and Harel Levy of Israel getting the better of Igor Kunitsyn (Rus) and Jim Thomas (USA) 3-6, 6-3, 10-6 to make it to the semi-finals.
The third match that was to be played on Friday was between defending champion, Xavier Malisse (Bel) and fourth seeded Mikhail Youzhny.
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