Mumbai: The men's singles and doubles finals in the $380,000 Kingfisher Airlines Open on Sunday were rescheduled due to wet court conditions following continuous rains.
The two finals would be held on Monday from 1600hrs IST, tournament director Gaurav Natekar announced after the decision to cancel the day's play was taken at 1815hrs IST.
After an almost entire rain-free week, sharp thundershowers followed by steady drizzles made no play possible at the CCI courts.
Third seed Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic, the world No 13 was to play fourth seed Dmitry Tursunov of Russia, ranked 23rd, for the singles title.
The doubles final was between the Indian duo of Rohan Bopanna and Mustafa Ghouse and the Indo-Croatian pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Mario Ancic.
Natekar said that ATP had a rule by which one reserve day is fixed for the finals and the organisers have decided to take that option.
"If no play is possible tomorrow too then the two finalists would be declared as joint runners up and each of them would get the runner up prize money and the same number of points for ending up as runner up," Natekar explained.
The runner up prize money for singles is $30,600 and for doubles it's $9,600. The two opponents in the men's final would each receive 24 race points and 120 entry points if no play is possible on Monday too.
"We tried out best to start play from 2.30 pm onwards and had even started drying out the court at around 4 pm and had succeeded in drying 70 per cent of the court when another drizzle came and stopped our effort," Natekar said.
"We had initially decided to take a call at 7.30 pm but after another bout of drizzle after 6 pm decided to cancel play for the day.
"We can't keep the crowds waiting endlessly and with there being no sunlight drying process would also have taken time even if rain had stopped," the tournament director said.
Natekar said the organisers had the option to cover the court with a plastic sheet on Monday morning, but ATP Communications Manager Stephen Duckitt said hard courts all over the world don't use covers as water generally seeps under them and they make the court sweat too.
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