Organizers defend scheduling decisions after washout
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Open tournament director Jim Curley defended the scheduling of the men's semi-finals on Saturday, called into question by the inability to complete the second match before a forecasted storm washed out play.
Four-times winner Roger Federer advanced to the final with a 6-3 5-7 7-5 6-2 victory over Novak Djokovic, but the second semi was suspended with sixth-seeded Andy Murray ahead of top seed Rafael Nadal 6-2 7-6 2-3, down a break in the third.
Spanish world number one Nadal and Murray will complete their match on Sunday afternoon with the winner advancing to the men's final against Federer, now pushed to Monday.
"We were told we had a window through approximately five o'clock," Curley told reporters. "We made our decisions based on the information we had available from the weather service and our on-site meteorologist."
The Murray-Nadal match was called off at 2:48 p.m. (7:48 p.m. British time).
The first semi-final began at 11 a.m., about an hour earlier than normally scheduled, and Organizers shifted the Nadal-Murray match to an adjacent court in hopes of completing both before the storm set in.
The second semi-final, however, started one hour 40 minutes later, a decision which Curley defended on grounds of fairness to fans, crowd control and "other considerations" -- a euphemism for TV scheduling demands.
COMPETION INTEGRITY
Curley said the integrity of competition was of uppermost importance to Organizers, before adding: "At the same time other considerations need to come into play.
"And that would be 23,000 people coming and wanting to see the number one, two, three, and six players in the world, and if you split them up (the matches) you're not going to have that opportunity.
"It's also important for everyone to understand that when we explained this to the players, to Nadal and Murray, not once were they questioning the decision, either before or after their match.
"When we considered it all, and other constituents that we needed to take care of, television and what have you, this is the decision that we went with."
Arlen Kantarian, the U.S. Tennis Association's chief for professional tennis, also defended the scheduling decisions.
"Clearly it was in the best interest of the fans, clearly it was in the best interests of television and it was clearly in the best interests of crowd control," he said.
"The rationale and the reasoning behind making these decisions were based on the best information we had in hand. We can't control the weather."
(Editing by Mark Lamport-Stokes)
