Rain Cancels Remaining Houston Play Friday
For the third straight day at the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men's Clay Court Championship, rain has cancelled the bulk of the day's play. While the last Houston first-round match was completed during a brief respite — with Max Purcell winning two games to close out a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 win against Daniel Altmaier — the rest of Friday's play was cancelled at the ATP 250.
“We have had several inches of rain in the past two days that have saturated our courts and these unseasonably cool temperatures are slowing down the drying process,” said tournament director Bronwyn Greer. “We want to ensure that our courts are in the best possible condition to complete our tournament this weekend, and with that in mind we have decided to forgo play today with the exception of that first-round match that [was] deep into the third set.”
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Purcell, who broke into the Top 100 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings for the first time last month after winning three straight ATP Challenger Tour titles, entered Houston at a career high of World No. 86. He will face eighth seed Tomas Martin Etcheverry in the second round.
"My goal this year was to try to be Top 100 by Wimbledon or earlier than that. I've done that, and now I'm trying to push and pick up more points from tour-level events," said the Australian, who won the Houston doubles title with countryman Matthew Ebden last season and is competing with Jordan Thompson in this year's team event. "I want to be playing ATP Tour events the rest of the year, permitted that I keep winning. It's a good start, and if I can keep pushing to quarters and onwards, it would be great."
Photo credit: Jared Wickerham/US ClayThe entirety of the singles second round was scheduled to be completed on Friday in Houston, in addition to the quarter-finals. Both rounds are now set to be played on Saturday, with the semi-finals and final scheduled for Sunday. For doubles, the quarter-finals are now set to be played on Saturday, followed by the semis and the final on Sunday.
Two second-round matches were started on Thursday before being suspended: Gijs Brouwer led fourth seed John Isner 6-4, 5-6, while fifth seed J.J. Wolf and Denis Kudla were knotted at 4-4 in their opening set.
Top seed Frances Tiafoe will now open his Houston campaign against Steve Johnson on Saturday, while second seed Tommy Paul meets Yannick Hanfmann in his opening match.
Saturday's schedule will be posted on ATPTour.com when it is available. For more information, including information on ticket refunds, please visit the official tournament website.