Rain postpones remaining French Open quarterfinals

   The French Open suffered its first rainout in three years today, potentially helping Rafael Nadal and Johanna Konta and possibly hurting Novak Djokovic and Simona Halep.
   The quarterfinals in the top half of the men's and women's singles draws were rescheduled for Thursday, when partly cloudy weather is forecast.
   At 3 a.m. (Tennis Channel), third seed and defending champion Halep will face unseeded Amanda Anisimova, 17, and eighth-seeded Ashleigh Barty will play 14th-seeded Madison Keys.
   Not before 5:30 a.m. PDT (Tennis Channel), the top-seeded Djokovic, seeking his fourth consecutive Grand Slam title, will play fifth-seeded Alexander Zverev, and fourth seed and 2018 runner-up Dominic Thiem will meet 10th-seeded Karen Khachanov. 
   The women's semifinals, originally scheduled for Thursday, will be played Friday with the men's semis, although more rain is forecast then.
   The second-seeded Nadal, seeking his 12th French Open singles crown, and third-seeded Roger Federer, who won his only Roland Garros title 10 years ago, have at least two days to rest between their quarterfinal victories on Tuesday and the resumption of their rivalry on Friday.
   But whoever wins Thursday's men's quarterfinals must play another best-of-five-set match on Friday, weather permitting.
   Whoever reaches the women's final in the top half of the draw will have played on three consecutive days, if the weather allows. In the bottom half, the 26th-seeded Konta and unseeded Marketa Vondrousova, a Czech left-hander who will turn 20 on June 28, advanced to the semifinals on Tuesday.
   As The New York Times reported today, this likely will be one of the last complete rainouts in Grand Slam history. A retractable roof over Court Philippe Chatrier is scheduled to be finished in time for next year's French Open, and all other major tournaments have at least one stadium with that feature.