Rio de Janeiro (AFP) – Heavy rain brought havoc to the fifth day of the Olympic Games tennis tournament on Wednesday and threatened to scupper Rafael Nadal’s triple gold medal assault.
After almost six hours of delays, 19 of the day’s 25 scheduled matches were cancelled.
They included all three matches that Nadal, who is still in the singles, men’s doubles and mixed doubles, was due to play.
The 30-year-old Spaniard is playing his first tournament in two months after being forced to quit the French Open with a left wrist injury.
He has already played five matches in three days in Rio and on Wednesday he had been due to tackle Italy’s Fabio Fognini for a place in the men’s quarter-finals.
Nadal was then set to team with Marc Lopez against Daniel Nestor and Vasek Pospisil for a place in the doubles final.
The 14-time major winner was also scheduled to play mixed doubles for the first time in his career with French Open champion Garbine Muguruza.
The Spanish pair have been drawn to face Lucie Hradecka and Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic.
Only six matches survived Wednesday’s cull.
They were the women’s singles quarter-finals between Elina Svitolina, the conqueror of Serena Williams, and Petra Kvitova and Monica Puig’s clash against Laura Siegemund.
In the men’s singles third round, Gael Monfils against Marin Cilic was still on the schedule as was Kei Nishikori’s match-up with Andrej Martin.
Two mixed doubles first round ties also remained.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.