THE CANADIAN PRESS
MONTREAL — Losing the final weekend to unrelenting rain capped a 2010 women’s Rogers Cup that was ill-fated from the start.
The semifinals — one of them still hanging on an early Caroline Wozniacki lead — were postponed from Saturday to Sunday and finally to Monday morning at 10 a.m. ET as rain fell on Uniprix Stadium and the players amused themselves with movies, computer games and table tennis in the players’ lounge.
Wozniacki, the second seed, took a 2-0, 0-15 lead on 11th-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova during a 10-minute dry spell Saturday evening, but not another point was able to be played.
Their semifinal is to be played simultaneously with the one that pits 10th-seeded Victoria Azarenka of Belarus against eighth-seeded Vera Zvonareva of Russia.
The final is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. ET, although more rain is forecast for Monday morning, with clouds and isolated showers in the afternoon.
"They say ‘Now it’s ready’ and you start warming up and then it starts raining again," Wozniacki said of the waiting. "The weather hasn’t been nice to us.
"At least I got to watch a movie — two, actually."
A Women’s Tennis Association spokesman said that if play is washed out again on Monday, they will meet with the players, Tennis Canada and the television broadcasters to decide what to do.
They can extend play into Tuesday, although that may not be acceptable to the players or to TV. Wozniacki is entered in a tournament that begins Monday in New Haven, Conn., although as top seed she has a bye to the second round and won’t have to play until Wednesday.
The other option would be to call off the rest of the tournament and split the prize money and WTA points evenly between the four semifinalists.
"Rain! please!" Azarenka exclaimed with a laugh when informed of that option.
Under that scenario, they would split US$700,000 and 2,310 points, or $175,000 each. The normal winner’s prize is $350,000, with $175,000 for the runner-up and $87,500 for each semifinalist.
No WTA tournament has ever been extended by more than one day.
The last time a final was unable to be played and the players split the money was at Scottsdale, Ariz., in 2000, when Martina Hingis was supposed to play Lindsay Davenport.
It would be a crushing blow for Tennis Canada, wiping out the final three sessions of the tournament. There are no cash refunds, but credits for tickets to next year’s events would have to be given to three sets crowds from the 11,000-seat Centre Court.
And Tennis Canada may not be in the mood to do favours for the WTA, which in recent years has not delivered its best roster of players for a premier level event, just below the four grand slam tournaments in prize money and points.
World No. 1 Serena Williams and Belgian star Justine Henin are out with long-term injuries that will also keep them out of the U.S. Open that begins Aug. 31, but the tournament also had what has become an annual ritual of top players pulling out in the few days before it starts.
This year, it was Maria Sharapova and Venus Williams. Australia’s top-10 player Samantha Stosur announced earlier she would not play due to an injury, although she’s entered in New Haven.
There was also bad luck as top-seeded Jelena Jankovic bowed out in her first match and crowd favourite Kim Clijsters pulled a hip muscle and lost in the third round to Zvonareva, after winning the first set 6-2.
"The rules say you can extend it another day," said tournament director Eugene Lapierre. "It goes case by case, but in our case, we’ll push for playing on Tuesday.
"There’s nothing standing in the way. Only one of the four players is entered in New Haven, Wozniacki, and she doesn’t start until Wednesday. And they’re forecasting nice weather for Tuesday, and that it’s supposed to clear up tomorrow, so we should be good."
The Rogers Cup set a record for a one-week WTA tournament in 2006 with 174,706 spectators and nearly matched that in 2008 with 174,189.
After the quarter-finals on Friday, attendance was 142,480, up slightly from the 142,251 tickets sold at the same point in 2008, but with too many stars missing, there appeared to be more no-shows this year. Glum-looking scalpers were asking half price for tickets outside the stadium.
It was in sharp contrast to the men’s Rogers Cup in Toronto a week earlier, when the four top-ranked players reached the semifinals and Andy Murray defended his title with a 7-5, 7-5 victory over Roger Federer.
It set an attendance record for Toronto with more than 161,000 for the week, although that is still well below the record of more than 200,000 who turned out for the men in Montreal in 2009.
The rain did not stop the doubles, which moved indoors to the Nuns’ Island Tennis Club. Singles matches cannot be moved.
Flavia Pennetta of Italy and Gisela Dulko of Argentina defeated Kveta Peschke of the Czech Republic and Katarina Srebotnik of Slovakia 7-5, 3-6, 12-10 to take the doubles final.
Earlier, Pennetta and Dulko beat Monica Niculescu of Romania and Shahar Peer of Israel 6-2, 3-6 (10-4) in the semifinal round. Peschke and Srebotnik downed Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain and Yan Zi of China 7-5, 1-6 (10-6).
Pennetta said there were between 50 and 100 spectators at her semifinal.
"We prefer this to waiting all day and not playing," said Dulko.
It is the second time in the last three occasions when the women’s Rogers Cup is held on alternate years in Montreal that the final is to be played on a Monday. In 2006, heavy rain postponed the final, eventually won 6-2, 6-3 in only 58 minutes by Ana Ivanovic over Hingis.
Pennetta is seeded seventh in New Haven, but has asked to have her first match scheduled for Tuesday. She was to drive there overnight with her entourage.