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.
“To be out of there in under an hour, it doesn’t always happen,” Pegula said. “So I think I’m just going to take that one and run, I guess, until the next round.”
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.
PHOTOS: Pegula, Medvedev score early wins at US Open, Alcaraz and Sabalenka to pursue title defense
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.
“I didn’t know if I was going to play just two points or six, or I don’t know how much, how many I play or one more set,” the Spaniard said Wednesday after finishing off her 6-1, 6-4 victory.
“So I knew that if I was winning this match, I’m playing the next day. So, yeah, it was everything a bit different. I was very nervous that I even couldn’t eat, so a lot of different stuff I did today, but sometimes it is how it is, and I tried to play with the things I had there.”
At least she got through. No. 12 Rafael Jodar, the 19-year-old from Spain who came in after a strong summer, was routed 6-2, 6-1, 6-1 by Bu Yunchaokete of China when his first-round match was finally completed.
“I knew it wasn’t going to be easy because I was waiting a lot yesterday and today as well, but it is what it is,” Jodar said. “We cannot control the rain, so it’s difficult for both players.”
The tournament was trying to catch up from Tuesday’s rain delays, with 25 singles matches being played on the men’s side alone.
Alex Michelsen pulled off an upset in one of them by ousting fellow American Brandon Nakashima, the No. 16 seed, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.
No. 7 Karolina Muchova, the Wimbledon runner-up, beat Katie Boulter 6-1, 6-0 to reach the third round, while No. 11 Marta Kostyuk got past 2017 U.S. Open champion Sloane Stephens 6-1, 7-5.
Medvedev protests call to replay a point after birds sit on the net
Daniil Medvedev thought the chair umpire’s call was for the birds.
Medvedev protested a decision Wednesday during his second-round victory at the U.S. Open after the umpire ordered a point to be replayed because two birds sat on top of the net during multiple shots of a rally.
Medvedev led 4-1 in the second set with Sebastian Gorzny serving. Two small birds sat atop the net in Louis Armstrong Stadium during the middle of a point and play continued, with both players hitting multiple shots before Medvedev angled a forehand toward the corner that caused one of the birds to fly up. Umpire Timo Janzen quickly signaled for play to stop as Gorzny began to hit a shot that would not have gotten back into play.
“This is the most ridiculous decisions I’ve seen in my life,” Medvedev said. “This is very bad.”
Medvedev, no stranger to chaotic moments in Armstrong, was asked following his 6-1, 6-3, 7-5 victory where that one ranked.
“This would be definitely in the top five,” he said. “But the thing is that when they came in, I thought, OK, the referee is going to stop the point, and he let it play, like, ‘OK, let’s play.’ And the moment I hit the winner, he was, like, ‘Stop! Stop! Stop!’”
Medvedev lost his first-round match in Armstrong last year, when his meltdown after the umpire allowed Benjamin Bonzi a second serve because a photographer mistakenly entered the court too soon led to a delay of more than six minutes. His antics on the same court in 2019, followed by a postmatch interview in which he encouraged fans to continue raining down boos on him, led to a $9,000 fine.
He quickly let go of Wednesday’s incident.
“It’s OK,” the 2021 champion said. “It happens.”
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