The scourge of the tennis fan...

The rain delay! So I made the trek up to New Haven today, hoping to catch two men's semis and one of the women's semis, but was met with a full day of gray skies and frustrating drizzle. At the pilot pen, not a single ball was hit today. I hung around and had lunch with my friend and former coworker, waiting to see if the weather would dry up, but signs were not so good. After a few hours, we abandoned the wait. I hung around the city until about six o'clock, just to see if things were going to improve before I hopped on the train and headed back to New York. Alas, they did not. The highlight of the day was that I did see Darren Cahill and Mary-Jo Fernandez, but they were clearly peeved about the delay, so I did not bother them.

Fortunately, I did not miss much by skipping the last round of the U.S. Open quallies, either. They apparently just got in a handful of matches and will have to finish tomorrow. Unfortunately, there are a lot of problems with this plan - first of all, tomorrow is also supposed to be Arthur Ashe Kids Day, and while it might be interesting for kids to be able to see the qualifiers playing on the outer courts, I doubt that the players, who are playing for a guaranteed $19,000 payday and the chance to get much more in terms of prize money and points, are going to be thrilled about the possibility of groups of children wandering around the grounds.

On the other hand, that might not even be an issue! Tropical Storm Danny is working its way up the northeast, and the forecast does not look good for tomorrow or for Sunday. While things should be clearing up by Monday, when the tournament proper is slated to start, this could still wreak havoc with the scheduling.

First of all, if the Pilot Pen can't play both the semis and the finals tomorrow (they seem to have played the women's semis at indoor courts this evening, at least according to the revised schedule), then their play will have to continue onto Sunday. Hopefully, the U.S. Open schedulers will try to accommodate the players remaining in the draw (Querrey, Verdasco, Andreev, and Acasuso, plus whoever is left on the women's side, two out of Pennetta, Wozniacki, Mauresmo, and Vesnina) by giving them Tuesday starts, at least.

This could be complicated if the qualifiers can't finish tomorrow, because if they have to finish up on Sunday, it would be somewhat unfair to make them play again on Monday (ideally, all the qualifiers would have had two whole days of rest), but the quallies are scattered around both sides of the draw, so that would be tough to do the usual top half/bottom half on alternating days.

And it all gets worse if no play can happen in New York or New Haven during Saturday OR Sunday! This is not terribly likely, but it's possible. They have had to leave tournaments unfinished before, but that's certainly not ideal for the Pilot Pen. I'm not sure what their contingency plans are. Regardless, if the forecast holds and the weather clears up by Monday, that could be a very interesting day at the Open. I'll be there, either way!

Even if qualifying play or the New Haven tournament does finish up tomorrow or Sunday, I probably won't make it out to see anything. I have some work I need to finish up in the next few days, since I don't expect that I'll be getting anything done once Monday rolls around.