体坛英语新闻：All matches on Wednesday canceled due to rain at US Open

NEW YORK, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- All the matches at the US Open were canceled on Wednesday because of the rain.

In the afternoon, the USTA announced the cancellation of men's matches, which had to be stopped half way for the rain on and off, but four semifinal matches scheduled for night session were expected to be carried out.

The first quarter match was arranged between three-time champion Serena Williams against 17th-seeded Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, but failed to be played as the two players came up to the court and just had a simple warmup before the rain connected up.

At about 8:20 p.m., the USTA announced the weather forecast a continuous rain at the night and also the canceling of the night session.

It was the second rainy day in New York. All the matches scheduled on Tuesday were canceled.

There were four women's quarterfinals slated for the night session. The matchups included top-ranked Caroline Wozniacki against 10th-seeded Andrea Petkovic and ninth seed Samantha Stosur versus second seed Vera Zvonareva.

Fourth-round men's matches that began on Wednesday morning had not be finished, which lasted 15 minutes and had to be halted for the rain .

In the earlier spell, defending champion Rafael Nadal was trailing unseeded Gilles Muller 3-0 after 16 minutes of tennis. Andy Roddick, seeded 21st, was ahead of fifth-seeded David Ferrer 3-1 and fourth-seeded Andy Murray was ahead of wild card entry Donald Young 2-1 and on serve.

Nadal, Roddick and Murray all complained about the wet and dangerous conditions and said they should not have started their matches Wednesday.

For the delays, the tournament is now in danger of having a Monday finish for the fourth straight year.

The weather forecast for Thursday and Friday also contains heavy doses of rain.