American Ben Shelton celebrates after he won his match against Hubert Hurkacz of Poland during the second round of the U.S. Open tennis championships on Wednesday in New York. (AP photo)
NEW YORK — At a rainy U.S. Open where it’s a struggle to even finish the first round, Jessica Pegula was happy to quickly be into the third.
The No. 3 seed needed only 56 minutes on Wednesday to defeat Sofia Kenin 6-3, 6-1. Kenin, the 2020 Australian Open champion, beat Venus Williams in her first match.
Some players won’t get there for a while. With rain coming down for a second day in New York, play was suspended again for a time on outside courts, allowing only play under the roofs in Arthur Ashe Stadium and Louis Armstrong Stadium to continue uninterrupted.
No. 8 seed Ben Shelton followed Pegula on Ashe and beat Hubert Hurkacz 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (3), 7-5, while No. 7 Daniil Medvedev raced past Sebastian Gorzny — except for a brief delay to protest the chair umpire’s decision to replay a point when two birds sat on the net — 6-3, 6-3, 7-5.
Defending champions Aryna Sabalenka and Carlos Alcaraz were set to play on Ashe at night.
Those are second-round matches, while some players were still playing their first. When the U.S. Open switched to a Sunday start last year, it spread out the first round over the first three days, so Wednesday would have arrived with everyone playing in the second round had the weather cooperated.
It hadn’t, and some players were not only still playing their first match, but they had to hope the weather cleared enough later so they wouldn’t have to resume it Thursday.
That poses a mental challenge, with Paula Badosa saying she didn’t even know how to prepare for the resumption of her match against Daria Kasatkina, which was halted Tuesday with her one game from winning to set up a second-round match against No. 4 Coco Gauff.
American Ben Shelton celebrates after he won his match against Hubert Hurkacz of Poland during the second round of the U.S. Open tennis championships on Wednesday in New York. (AP photo)
American Ben Shelton celebrates after he won his match against Hubert Hurkacz of Poland during the second round of the U.S. Open tennis championships on Wednesday in New York. (AP photo)