Wimbledon
Wet, windy Wednesday
AFP, London
Wimbledon suffered its first all-day washout for five years and only the 31st in its 127 year history when torrential rain, gale force winds and biting cold wiped out any prospect of play.After a frustrating and miserable day, All England Club officials finally conceded defeat at 6:45 p.m. (1745 GMT) leaving 45 first round matches in the men's and women's singles still to be completed. Start of play on Thursday and Friday has been brought forward by an hour to compensate for the backlog while the men's doubles has been reduced to the best-of-three sets up to the quarterfinal stage. But with more rain forecast for later in the week, organisers could be forced to play on the middle Sunday, traditionally a rest day at the championships. "We're not unduly concerned," insisted referee Alan Mills. "If we were thinking of playing on Sunday that would not be until Friday. Obviously, we would like not to play on the middle Sunday." The middle Sunday has been used just twice in the tournament's history. The only issue resolved on Wednesday was Slovakia's Daniela Hantuchova reaching the third round of the women's singles after her scheduled opponent Elena Bovina withdrew with an abdominal strain. The unseeded Hantuchova, who beat America's Samantha Reeves in the first round, will now face either 13th seeded Russian Maria Shara-pova or Britain's Anne Keothavong for a place in the fourth round. Bovina, the Russian 20th seed, defeated Edina Gallovits, of Romania, 6-1, 6-2 in her opener when she complained of the injury. While Hantuchova was looking ahead to the third round, poor Argentinian third seed Guillermo Coria and Wesley Moodie of South Africa faced the prospect of completing their first round match on Thursday - four days after they started. The match stands at two sets all with Coria serving for the tie at 5-3 and 30-30 in the decider. Men's top seed Roger Federer, who made it through to the second round in double quick time on Monday had been due to be back in action on Wednesday in a second round tie against Colombia's Alejandro Falla on Court 1. Veteran American Martina Navratilova was also chomping at the bit to get at Argentina's Gisela Dulko, who beat her easily on clay in Paris in the French Open last month. The 47-year-old nine-time former winner won her first singles match at Wimbledon in 10 years on Monday when she crushed Catalina Castano of Colombia for the loss of just one game. Also on unfinished business on centre court is men's No 2 seed Andy Roddick who was forced off the court by Tuesday's rain while leading 4-2 in the first set of his match against Taiwan's Wang Yeu-Tzuoo.
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