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The U.S. Open tennis tournament is delayed today. Here\u2019s why the delay happened and when pay may start again.<\/p>\n
Adverse weather, including rain and lightning, halted third-round qualifying at the U.S. Open Thursday afternoon<\/a>, stopping several matches in progress and threatening to compress an already tight schedule two days before the main draw opens.<\/p>\n As the delay dragged on into the evening hours, multiple matches were canceled and it appeared that play may be halted until Friday \u2014 but no official channel confirmed the status of play one way or the other.<\/p>\n \u201cMany matches appearing as Cancelled for the day or postponed at the US Open Qualifying schedule,\u201d reported the edgeAI tennis<\/a> social media account shortly before 6. \u201cNot confirmed yet that all today\u2019s matches are cancelled for the day but all the later matches that have not started yet have been cancelled for today.\u201d <\/p>\n Play stopped across the outer courts at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center around 1 p.m. ET, with the tournament\u2019s live scoring system marking a wave of contests \u201cSuspended.\u201d Qinwen Zheng, the No. 14 seed and a former Grand Slam finalist, was midway through her match against Elena Pridankina on Stadium 17 when the skies opened over Flushing Meadows.<\/p>\n Play resumed at about 3:25 p.m., according to Tennis Updates, but how long it wold last was not certain. In fact, play was halted again due to lightning<\/a> and more rain pending at about 4 p.m.<\/p>\n This time, it appeared that play would not resume until about 7 p.m.<\/a> at the earliest, though no official announcements from the U.S Open were forthcoming.<\/p>\n By 6 p.m. ET, though the U.S. Open remained closed-mouthed with official information, signals appeared that play may be done for the day.<\/p>\n During Thursday\u2019s first suspension of play, the Open announced that play would not resume prior to 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, but the announcement did not give a time for play to start again. But at 2:10 p.m. the edgeAI tennis account<\/a> posted, \u201cStill raining at the US Open Qualifying matches. No play before 3pm local time, could be a longer delay.\u201d<\/p>\n However, 3 p.m. came and went with no new updates on when play would resume at the U.S. Open. But at about 2:45, edgeAI posted<\/a>, \u201cDrying started on some courts at the US Open qualifying. IF no more rain they should be able to resume play in 45-60 mins or so (estimate).\u201d<\/p>\n On the other hand, AccuWeather forecast for<\/a> the USTA Center showed thundershowers continuing through 4 p.m., with a. severe thunderstorm watch in effect through 8 p.m. with a flood watch until 11 p.m.<\/p>\n \u201cRain has already halted the final round of U..S Open qualifying,\u201d wrote The Tennis Talk<\/a> shortly after 2 p.m. ET. \u201cWith more intermittent showers forecast from Sunday night through Wednesday evening \u2014 especially heavy rain on Monday\u2014the U.S. Open 2026 could face a hectic opening round. Scheduling chaos may be inevitable.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t Forecast Offers Little Relief Before Main Draw<\/p>\n Showers and thunderstorms carrying a 60% chance of rain were forecast for Thursday afternoon across Queens, with some storms expected to turn severe, according to the National Weather Service\u2019s Thursday afternoon outlook<\/a>. A flood watch remained active for Queens and the Bronx into the evening, with the agency warning of localized downpours capable of dumping up to three-quarters of an inch of rain in a short span.<\/p>\n Rain chances were expected to persist into the night before easing somewhat Friday, though a lingering 30% chance of storms still hovered over the region, the National Weather Service noted. Organizers had made no announcement on resumption as of early afternoon, typically opting to wait until courts dry sufficiently for safe play to continue.<\/p>\n Whatever qualifying matches don\u2019t finish Thursday will need to wrap up before Sunday, when the US Open main draw begins and determines the final 16 men\u2019s and 16 women\u2019s spots in the 128-player fields. That leaves a narrow window for players like Zheng, Fearnley and Montgomery to complete their bids without the benefit of a full night\u2019s rest between matches.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t Qinwen Zheng and Others Left Waiting on Court<\/p>\n Jacob Fearnley\u2019s third-round bid against Jurij Rodionov stalled on Court 5, and Coleman Wong\u2019s match with Dusan Lajovic froze on Court 7, both according to Tennis Temple\u2019s live order of play<\/a>. Toby Samuel and Christian Garin were locked in a similarly unfinished battle on Court 9, each having split just a single game before the rain arrived.<\/p>\n Vilius Gaubas and Harry Wendelken got no further than a game apiece on Court 6. Daniel Rincon and Tomas Barrios Vera were pulled off Court 10 in an identical deadlock, while Aziz Dougaz and Andrea Guerrieri had at least worked through a set on Court 14 before the delay hit.<\/p>\n The women\u2019s side saw its own pileup. Robin Montgomery\u2019s clash with Cody Branstine sat suspended on Court 11, and G. Knutson\u2019s match against E. Gorgodze went dark on Court 4. Most of the interrupted matches were still in their first or second sets when officials pulled players off the outer courts.<\/p>\n Thursday marked the scheduled finale of men\u2019s and women\u2019s singles qualifying, the last chance for 32 players to punch tickets into next week\u2019s main draw. The tournament\u2019s event schedule had qualifying starting<\/a> at 11 a.m., with Arthur Ashe Stadium and Louis Armstrong Stadium \u2014 both equipped with retractable roofs \u2014 sitting unused. Qualifying is contested strictly on the uncovered outer courts, leaving no shelter once the storms rolled through the grounds. \t\t\t\t \n\t\t\tJonathan Vankin<\/a> JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist who covers MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, boxing, golf, and Olympic sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Newspaper and Press Association awards for sports feature writing. He was a sports editor and writer at The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Japan, covering the Olympics, pro baseball, boxing, sumo and other sports. More about Jonathan Vankin<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty The U.S. Open tennis tournament is delayed today. Here\u2019s why the delay happened and when pay may…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":870737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-870736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/alexander-zverev-jannik-sinner-carlos-alcaraz-comments.jpg\")
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The evening\u2019s \u201cStars of the Open\u201d exhibition, scheduled for 6 p.m. at Arthur Ashe Stadium, can still proceed under the venue\u2019s closed roof regardless of the outer-court washout. Updates on when qualifying resumes will come through the tournament\u2019s official scoring platform as conditions allow.<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/maya-joint-serena-williams-wimbledon-upset.jpg\")
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