{"id":787352,"date":"2026-09-30T11:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T11:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/787352\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T11:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T11:02:13","slug":"japan-open-suspended-as-tennis-stars-forced-off-and-told-to-move-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/787352\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan Open suspended as tennis stars forced off and told to move court"},"content":{"rendered":"

Play at the Japan Open was suspended for more than two hours due to heavy rain in Tokyo, leaving the players in limbo. The stoppage was declared midway through the first set of Jiri Lehecka’s first-round match against Zizou Bergs, forcing them off the court. The rain continued to lash down for a couple of hours, forcing play at the ATP 500<\/a> event to remain stopped.<\/p>\n

Jean-Julien Roger and Theodore Winegar’s doubles match against David Stevenson and Marcus Willis was also affected by the inclement weather. Some matches were eventually moved to other courts and rescheduled for later in the afternoon. Play eventually continued after the rain eased up and the outdoor courts were dried by members of staff.<\/p>\n

However, after only a brief period, another heavy shower caused additional delays. By that time, Lehecka had managed to win the first set against Bergs by six games to three.<\/p>\n

The second delay meant that play would not resume for another hour, with the rain showing little sign of slowing down.<\/p>\n

A couple of matches were played in full in spite of the weather, with Valentin Vacherot beating Alexander Blockx in straight sets and Alejandro Tabilo securing a comfortable win over Tommy Paul.<\/p>\n

It came after Lorenzo Musetti withdrew from the tournament at the eleventh hour, citing a broken finger. He was due to face British youngster Arthur Fery<\/a> in the opening round.<\/p>\n

In a statement published on social media, the Italian said: “Unfortunately, I won’t be able to play in Tokyo this year due to a small fracture in the ring finger of my right hand that I sustained during practice.<\/p>\n

“I’m very disappointed, especially because I couldn’t wait to get back to playing in front of my Japanese fans and experience the wonderful atmosphere of Tokyo once again.<\/p>\n

“I will do everything I can in the next few days to recover and be ready to play in Shanghai. Thank you all for your support and for the many messages. I hope to see you very soon. See you soon, Japan.”<\/p>\n

Musetti was replaced in the draw by lucky loser Jaime Faria, who has enjoyed a breakout season this year. If he beats Fery in the opening round, he will break into the top 60 of the ATP rankings.<\/p>\n

EXPRESS SPORT ON FB!Get all the best sports news and much more on our Facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Play at the Japan Open was suspended for more than two hours due to heavy rain in Tokyo,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":787353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-787352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}