From rain delays to heat rule halts: Rio Open faces double disruption before final

It has been a complicated week for the organisation of the Rio Open, which has found itself facing constant suspensions of its matches due to the rains. As happens in almost every year, the rain once again becomes a problem in the tournament, and the suspensions have been a constant throughout the entire week.

Almost every day there have been suspensions – with several duels interrupted, something that has been a constant at Rio de Janeiro, an area especially rainy during the Brazilian summer. On Saturday the situation became more complicated as they were forced to suspend the semifinal matches for whole day.

However, even greater are the problems when it is also the heat that forces the actions to stop. This Saturday Etcheverry and Kopriva managed to resume their duel, but due to the heat conditions they had to suspend it – and just a few hours before the final, they still have one last third set left to play that will define the second finalist.

Tomas Etcheverry was trailing 5-4 in his semifinal against Czech Vit Kopriva, who had broken his serve and was serving for the set when the match was interrupted. The Czech had taken the advantage by capitalising on his only break opportunity, while the Argentine had not taken advantage of his only chance. The rain arrived at the Guga Kuerten Court and a pause was taken in the match.

After several hours of intense rain, the organisation decided to postpone the continuation of the match to Sunday morning, while in parallel the second semifinal duel was scheduled – from which the players could not even step onto the court on Saturday.

Alejandro Tabilo there defeated the young Peruvian Ignacio Buse 6-3, 6-3 and advanced to the Rio Open final, which will be played in the Brazilian afternoon. Barely around six hours separate the end of Tabilo’s match from the scheduled start of the final, while his rival is still not known – with four hours remaining until the duel at the time of closing this publication.

On the other side, Kopriva and Etcheverry resumed their match with Kopriva leading 5-4. The Central European held his serve to close the set and take the lead 6-4. However, in the second set things became more complicated. Both held their serve without complications, and Etcheverry had up to three set points on return when he was leading 6-5. Finally everything was decided in the tiebreak, in which the Argentine took the lead 7-6(2), before the heat conditions forced the match to stop.

In this way, Etcheverry and Kopriva are still waiting to step onto the court to contest the third set – and shortly afterwards they will have to come out to face the final against Alejandro Tabilo, who will have a few extra hours of rest before going in search of the most important title of his career. The Chilean took just 71 minutes to secure the victory and will arrive with a small advantage to the title match.

Those who also have not yet stepped onto the court are the doubles finalists. The specialists Robin Haase and Hendrik Jebens Frantzen will face the locals Marcelo Melo and Joao Fonseca – who seek to once again give the doubles title to a local pair.