Hmm, yes I did think from memory that the the Wednesday men's night match was normally a star name early R2 match, eg a Roddick or Federer in the past with the top names having at least completed R1 by Wednesday daytime. So while playing R1 on Wednesday was not that unusual, being the night Wednesday match did seem a bit strange.

Clearly the plan was to play Rafa's R2 match on Ashe on Wednesday night, but the rain has caught them on Monday and his opponent's match has run into Tuesday ( maybe it should have been scheduled earlier since most of Monday's scheduled matches, i.e. 18, were completed on Monday ).

Anyway, can't have players competing on successive days, well unless you are Andy and he now doesn't complete today ( due to filling the Ashe night breach and then possible weather ! )

Surely they could have found one decent R2 match from the completed Monday R1 matches to play the Wednesday night match ?!

Every outdoor tournament has to contend with the unpredictability that bad weather brings but the US Open seems to have a particularly bizarre
way of dealing with this. And every year seem to be totally startled and surprised by the rain delays they inevitably have .

I don't have a particular problem with TV dictating scheduling to a certain extent, they are after all putting a lot of money into the game and bringing
new spectators and sponsorship to the game.

It just seems that the dual pressures of TV schedules and very odd US Open OOP create some glaringly obvious disparities for the players.

I'm not a stats person but even when we had no indoor court at Wimbledon and moaned on endlessly about rain we didn't seem to make quite such
a glaring hash out of things.

Ruddy Norah it's almost the weekend and Andy hasn't had his first round match !

Latest forecast suggest defo dry after 7-8pm there time, so I assume the powers that be will ensure all R1 mens matches are completed today and rearrange schedule accordingly, or will they ?

I'm a massive fan and follower but not very knowledgeable.

Somehow the 'shape' of the draw at Wimbledon and the Aus Open (not a massive follower of the French) stays in my head and I follow the rounds players are in and generally
have a good overall sense of when matches are likely to be played and what round it is without too much thought or effort.

Here though I easily lose my sense of how the draw is going. I also lose my glasses and sundry stuff on a regular basis so easily my lack of concentration at fault : (

Serena's match has just been bumped to tomorrow so that brings Andy's one step sooner

indiana wrote:

Imoen, to be fair, the 14 already completed R1 top half matches do come in 7 pairs, I am guessing by some element of judgement.

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 Pah! I never let the facts get in the way of a good rant!!

In all seriousness though I don't think the US organisers are actively trying to sabotage the schedule, I just think they tend to put the tv networks' demands above those of the players and common sense on more occasionTheban the other grand slams. but Iwho alsounderstand that actually all tand players and tournaments are in the entertainment business and we purists on here are in the minority So perhaps we should just be grateful the US is the only one to cause us such consternation!

Delpo's won in 4, so Andy should be up in an hour or so.