Carlos Alcaraz of Spain and Gael Monfils of France began their 2nd round match at the Cincinnati Open Thursday night at 7:00pm. That match would end Friday afternoon a little after 3pm. Alcaraz took the 1st set, but crack began to show for the young Spaniard in the 2nd set. Monfils would force a tiebreaker and go up 3-1 early in that tiebreak. This is where play would come to a screeching halt, as Mother Nature would decide to intervene. at 8:38, play was officially halted and we went into the first rain delay of the tournament.
In years past the tournament would try it's best to wait out the storm and finish the match. It became clear though as the 10pm hour approached that there would not be a large enough window in the system moving through the area to dry the courts and resume play, so the decision was made to stop play for the evening with plans to resume on Friday morning.
Mother nature would make other plans.
Rain would still be falling on the Linder Family Tennis Center Friday morning pushing play back even further. Due to the late postponement of the remainder of the match Thursday night, Alcaraz and Monfils were given extra time to rest Friday morning allowing women's world number 1 Iga Swiatek and her opponent Marta Kostyuk to open the day session on Friday.
Alcaraz and Monfils would retake the court around 1:30 pm and resume their match. Monfils would take the 2nd set tiebreaker, and go up an early break on Alcaraz. From there both players would hold serve the rest of the way giving the 37-year old Frenchman the upset victory 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-4.
Monfils moves on to play Denmark's Holger Rune in the next round later on Friday.
Check out photos from this match below.
After his match Alcaraz spoke with the media.
Gael Monfils, with another match to play Friday, did not speak with the media.