Queen's: Kyle Edmund trails Stefanos Tsitsipas as rain hits play again
- Published
Black clouds hovered above Queen's for much of the day again
Fever-Tree Championships |
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Venue: Queen's Club, London Dates: 17-23 June |
Coverage: Live on BBC TV and online with live text and radio coverage on selected matches. |
Rain disrupted play at Queen's for a second day running with British number one Kyle Edmund unable to complete his first-round match against Greek top seed Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Edmund, 24, was trailing 6-3 3-3 when the pair were forced off a dark centre court at about 19:45 BST on Wednesday.
Only seven matches were completed at the west London club, where Tuesday's play was entirely washed out.
British pair Dan Evans and Jay Clarke lost in two of the completed matches.
British number three Evans lost 6-3 6-4 to three-time Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka in a match which was halted for three hours because of the poor weather.
Clarke, the 20-year-old British number four, started his match against France's Lucas Pouille when play resumed at 17:30 BST and was beaten 7-6 (7-2) 6-1 by the Australian Open semi-finalist.
The rain has created a scheduling headache as tournament organisers look to clear the backlog of matches at the ATP Tour 500 event.
Britain's former world number one Andy Murray was set to make his comeback from hip surgery on Wednesday when he takes part in the doubles alongside Spain's Feliciano Lopez.
Their match against Colombian top seeds Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah was pushed back to Thursday and will be fifth on centre court (likely to be about 17:00 BST) in a packed schedule where three first-round matches are still to be completed.
Bulgarian former world number four Grigor Dimitrov and Australia's Nick Kyrgios have still not started their campaigns and will have to also play second-round matches on Thursday if they win their openers.
Edmund and Tsitsipas will resume their match about 12:30 BST on centre court after defending champion Marin Cilic opens with his second-round match against Argentina's Diego Schwartzman.
Either Edmund or Tsitsipas will return to play France's Jeremy Chardy in the second round after Wawrinka's match against another Frenchman, Nicolas Mahut.
The weather is forecast to be much better in west London on Thursday, with sunny intervals and only a small chance of rain predicted, and organisers have brought forward the start of play by an hour to 11:00 BST.
Tuesday's wash-out was only the third day in the event's 18-year history that no play has been possible.
Before the start of the tournament organisers had expected the second round to be completed on Thursday.
Evans' winning streak broken & Del Potro pulls out
Slippery conditions at Queen's give Evans and Wawrinka a hard time
British number three Evans' 10-match winning streak on grass came to an end with a first-round defeat by Wawrinka in slippery conditions.
Evans, who had won back-to-back titles at Surbiton and Nottingham this month, was outclassed by the Swiss seventh seed.
Their match was postponed from Tuesday and was then interrupted by rain again at 5-3 in the first set.
Earlier, third seed Juan Martin del Potro opened his campaign with a clinical 7-5 6-4 victory over Canada's world number 25 Denis Shapovalov.
But the 30-year-old Argentine, whose season has been interrupted by a knee injury, later withdrew from the tournament because of pain and swelling in his right knee.
Del Potro slipped near the net in the eighth game of the second set and now faces a race against time to recover in time for Wimbledon, which starts on 1 July.