French Open play postponed by rain

PARIS, June 5 (UPI) -- Heavy rain suspended play Wednesday at the French Open, forcing three men's quarterfinal matches and the women's semifinal matches to be played on Thursday.

No. 11 Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain was leading fourth-seeded Andre Agassi of the United States, 6-3, 1-0 in the first men's quarterfinal match when play was suspended. Ferrero had a 5-2 lead in the first set when a storm first delayed the match for nearly five hours.

With a forecast of rain for the rest of the day, the match was resumed briefly and Ferrero closed out the first set and took the lead in the second before play was suspended for good.

When play begins Thursday, Spain's Alex Corretja and Romania's Andrei Pavel will continue their quarterfinal match, which was suspended Tuesday due to darkness with Corretja leading, 7-6, 7-5, 4-5. They never got on the court Wednesday.

The 18th-seeded Corretja won both previous matches against No. 22 Pavel.

The Corretja-Pavel match will be followed by the continuation of the Agassi-Ferrero match. The third match Thursday will be the men's quarterfinal between second seed Marat Safin of Russia and France's Sebastian Grosjean.

The women's semifinals -- pitting top seed Jennifer Capriati against Serena Williams and Venus Williams against Clarisa Fernandez -- will follow the men's matches Thursday.

Ferrero was not affected by the drizzly conditions before play was interrupted for the first time, breaking Agassi's serve twice in taking a 5-2 lead.

But rain began to fall heavily, halting play for close to five hours. When play resumed, Agassi broke Ferrero's serve, but Ferrero broke back to win the first set.

Ferrero held serve to start the second set, before the match was postponed.

Agassi needed more than three hours Monday to get by French wild card Paul-Henri Mathieu, 4-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3, to reach the quarterfinals.

The last time Agassi made such a comeback was in the final here in 1999, when he defeated Andrei Medvedev, 1-6, 2-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 to complete a career Grand Slam.

Agassi has won his last 10 matches, all on clay. He captured his 52nd career title at the Tennis Masters Series event in Rome on clay three weeks ago.

Ferrero advanced by winning his second five-set match of the tournament, defeating Gaston Gaudio, 6-7, 6-1, 6-7, 6-2, 6-4 on Monday.

Safin is bidding to reach his third straight Grand Slam tournament semifinal while Grosjean tries to become the first Frenchman to win here in 19 years.

Safin has a 3-2 edge in overal meetings, but Grosjean won the only matchup on clay at the 2001 World Team Cup.

Yevgeny Kafelnikov is the only Russian to win the men's French Open title, having done so in 1996. Yannick Noah was the last Frenchman to win the French Open title in 1983.