Rains played havoc with the matches at the U.S. Open Tuesday, essentially wiping out both sessions and pushing Andy Roddick’s and Novak Djokovic’s matches to today. The only person happy about the weather may have been Maria Sharapova, who got a reprieve — make that a standing eight count — in her match against Marion Bartoli.
Sharapova’s will be the first match at Arthur Ashe Stadium Wednesday at 11 a.m., and she will have had all night to ponder what went wrong. Broken in both of her service games, she dug herself a hole and finds herself down 4-0, 15-30 to Bartoli after 24 minutes.
Roddick — the last remaining American man in the singles draw — announced he will retire following this U.S. Open. With the Ashe Stadium crowd buzzing in support, he stormed off to a 5-2 lead against Juan Martin del Potro and was just two points from taking the first set before he lost all momentum.
The seventh-seeded Argentine rallied back as Roddick uncorked a run of unforced errors. Roddick took a 1-0 lead in the first-set tiebreaker before play was suspended. The match resumes today on Ashe, not before 12:30 p.m.
Djokovic leads Stanislas Wawrinka 2-0, in a match that will resume on Louis Armstrong after 12:30 p.m.
There were four rain delays before play was called off for good last night. The only featured matches completed were world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka’s 6-1, 4-6, 7-6 (5) win over defending champ Sam Stosur and David Ferrer’s rain-interrupted 7-5, 7-6 (2), 6-4 victory over Richard Gasquet.
Andy Murray-Marin Cilic will be the third day match on Ashe. The night session beginning at 7 p.m. features Serena Williams against Ana Ivanovic followed by Roger Federer against Tomas Berdych.
Fans who had tickets for Tuesday night’s session — which didn’t have a complete match — can redeem them for tickets to the same session next year, for day sessions Thursday or Friday or for Wednesday’s Armstrong session.