Men’s final postponed at U.S. Open
After two weeks where players battled both scorching heat and intense winds, it wasn’t until the final day at the U.S. Open that a match was postponed due to the weather. On Sunday, persistent rain caused the championship match between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic to be postponed until Monday. In fact, it will be the third consecutive year that the U.S. Open will not finish on schedule.
Nadal, who is looking to complete a career Grand Slam, and Djokovic, who is looking for his second Grand Slam title, were scheduled to play at 4:30pm on Sunday afternoon in New York, but the rain came down about two hours earlier and did not stop until 6:15pm. Due to the lengthy delay, tournament officials decided to postpone the match to Monday at 4:00pm.
"It was a very uncertain forecast, and had been shifting over the course of the day. We are in a band of showers that potentially could stretch until 1 (a.m)," U.S. Tennis Association spokesman Chris Widmaier said. "There may be breaks in there, but it was such an uncertain forecast that we felt the right thing to do for the players - and certainly for the fans - was to postpone the remaining matches until tomorrow."
Nadal and Djokovic were told just before 6:30pm that the match was postponed until Monday, Widmaier said.
Prior to 2008, the U.S. Open men's final hadn’t seen a delay since 1987. In 2008 Roger Federer defeated Andy Murray on a Monday for his fifth consecutive U.S. Open title. Last year, Federer once again found himself in a Monday final where he lost to Argentine Juan Martin del Potro.
This marks the first three-year string of postponed finishes at the U.S Open since men's and women's singles competitions were played at the same site in 1935. Monday’s forecast calls for a 20 per cent chance of thunderstorms.
Tags: