French Open: Rain disrupts opening day at Roland Garros
Sunday 22 May 2016 18:50, UK
Heather Watson and Kei Nishikori were unable to complete their first round matches at the French Open as rain brought an early end to day one.
With heavy rain predicted to fall throughout Sunday it was a surprise that proceedings got under way at all and even more of a surprise that 10 of the scheduled 32 matches were completed in the four hours of play before the skies opened.
After the best part of three hours' delay, play resumed at 4.50pm but following just half an hour on court matches were suspended for a second time and play was eventually halted for the day just before 5.45pm with plenty of matches still to be completed or even started.
Nick Kyrgios and Petra Kvitova were among the winners in the early matches, many of which took place in almost constant drizzle, while Britain's Kyle Edmund and Canada's eighth seed Milos Raonic were among the men who did not even get on court, the same going for Simona Halep (6) and Garbine Mugaruza (4) in the women's event.
In the action that was suspended Watson lost a topsy-turvy opening set against her some-time doubles partner Nicole Gibbs, the American taking the first set 7-5 despite Watson leading 3-1 and having break points for a 5-3 lead.
The British No 2 made her disdain at the conditions known throughout the second set but when the covers came on for the first time she had regained enough composure to lead 3-2 in the second.
The players returned for half an hour of action, Watson rattling through three games in rapid succession to level the match by taking the second set 6-3 before Gibbs broke early to lead 2-1 in the decider.
Japan's Kei Nishikori was the highest male seed in action on the opening day, the fifth seed taking the opening two sets comfortably before his match with Italy's Simone Bolelli was halted with the score at 6-1 7-5 2-1.
Jack Sock was level with Robin Haase at two sets all, Haase battling back after Sock took the first two sets, while 13th seed Svetlana Kuznetsova battled back to lead 4-6 6-1 3-1 against Yaroslava Shvedova.
Play is scheduled to start at 10am UK time on Monday, when organisers will attempt to catch up on Sunday's loss of time, but the forecast looks similar for the French capital.
