Houston Open Catastrophe Goes From Bad To Worse With Another Rainy Day
ATP
The catastrophe at the 2023 Houston Open continued also after another day. Any second-round matches have yet to be completed before Saturday.
Almost all of the action was canceled again on Thursday, April 7th, at the 2023 Houston Open, also called the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships. The only match that was finished was the only remaining first-round match between Max Purcell and Daniel Altmaier, which was finished on Court 7.
The tournament organizers till now try to save the tournament in the last two days. There should be plenty of action on Saturday, with two rounds scheduled for the day.
Fans should be able to see all of the second-round matches, as well as the quarter-final matches, at the ATP 250 event in Houston. After that, the semi-finals and the final match should be played on Sunday, April 9th.
If the tournament organizers manage to pull that off, the tournament will end on the scheduled day, even though the two finalists will have to play four matches in two days.
The Houston Open tournament director, Bronwyn Greer, detailed the situation ahead of the last two days of the event. Rain is not the only problem. There are also very low temperatures in Houston, which makes it difficult for the courts to be dried faster.
"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."
At the same time, the tournament organizers don't want to make an unreasonable decision to sacrifice the court quality to push the play sooner. Their main goal remains having the courts in the best possible condition.
"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 is deep into the third set."
