By Ros Satar, at Roland Garros
- Rain washes out play at Roland Garros leaving the schedule well behind
- Remaining quarter-finals to be played on Thursday, and semi-finals postponed to Friday.
PARIS, FRANCE – A frustrating day of rain leaves the schedule in a bit of bother as we take a look at who, if anyone, benefits from the rain delay.
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[table “ADPDAll” not found /]Whether the weather be good…
As the old tongue-twister goes:
Whether the weather be good
Or whether the weather be not
We’ll weather the weather, whatever the weather
Whether we like it or not!
There was little to do but catch up with work, sleep, Netflix or whatever took your fancy as the rain showed up to write off all of the quarter-finals on Wednesday. Thankfully the FFT took the view to call off the day at 4:30pm local time (comparatively early, eh Rome?) assuring people who had tickets for today that they would be able to get into Lenglen court, provided there was space – because don’t forget people have tickets for today too, but were expecting to see semi-finals on Chatrier.
The semi-finals that were scheduled for today – Johanna Konta v Marketa Vondrousova and Rafael Nadal v Roger Federer – will now be played on Friday and in all likelihood, whoever wins today in the women’s draw will have to play Friday and Saturday as well. However for the women this is not as much of an issue as for the men – they are accustomed to playing every day deep into a tournament on the tour.
The issue will be for the men – best of five sets can throw up unfair advantages in recovery, should tomorrow’s projected weather throw more up more issues.
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Does anyone benefit?
Will an extra day’s rest benefit Konta in her bid to win her first Slam? It can be difficult to say. Practices will have been affected outdoors, although there are indoor facilities for use, it is not the same as playing on the terre battue.
She will be more rested if the other half of the draw have to play continually now, but take nothing away from her opponent – she will still need to come in sharp and ready for the inspired youngster in Vondrousova.
Mind you on the men’s side, Federer may well get a benefit from the body at least having an extra day, but mentally having a break from the tennis ahead of what is sure to be his biggest test yet might not work in his favour.
WATCH/LISTEN | PODCAST | Tennis | Tournament in a TeaBreak | Roland Garros 2019 Day 11 Wrap
The pressure will be on the FFT to manage the schedule if the weather proves to be as miserable as a range of weather apps are predicting then the debate will not only be how to get the matches out of the way to allow the players adequate time to rest, but the age old bug-bear of favouritism over which matches get placed where.
Play continues on Day 12 of Roland Garros from 11am (10am BST) on the outer courts and 12pm (11am BST) on the show courts.
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