Melbourne (AFP)
The rain that fell on Monday afternoon over Melbourne forced the organizers of the Australian Open to interrupt the matches on the annex courts and to cancel some of them including all those of the French, while they continued on the three main courts, with roofs.
At 6:00 p.m. (8:00 a.m. French), the organizers began to cancel some of the games on the program on Monday, in particular those of the French Ugo Humbert against John Millman, Corentin Moutet against Marin Cilic, Benoît Paire against Cedrik-Marcel Stebe, Caroline Garcia against Madison Brengle, Fiona Ferro against Alison van Uytvanck and Pauline Parmentier against Qiang Wang. Quentin Halys' match against Filip Krajinovic was suspended when the two players were tied 3 points throughout the tie break in the first set.
Only Grégoire Barrère finished his match on Monday and qualified for the second round.
First drops fell at 2:39 pm (04:39 French), forcing the referee to suspend Roger Federer's match against Steve Johnson in the Rod Laver Arena for a few minutes, time to close the roof. The roofs of the Margaret Court Arena and the Melbourne Arena were also closed, without disrupting the program.
On the other hand, the games which had continued on the short annexes without roofs were finally suspended shortly after 3:00 p.m. (05:00 French time), when the rain suddenly intensified.
The first Grand Slam tournament of the year, a time threatened by toxic fumes from the monster fires ravaging Australia, had started well at 11:00 am (01:00 French time) with air quality deemed "good". But it was the rain that thwarted the program.
© 2020 AFP