Rain in Rome

My forecast for Rome says rain until 7pm lol.

Seemingly though the court covers are coming off.

forecast not looking good for the rest of the week either.

watching li/jj stream now, where covers were just removed. is that puddles on the left side of the court?

If it is, it doesn't really matter, they can get rid of puddles on clay really quickly.

You just spread it in/throw some more clay down.

I remember the court getting destroyed in the WTA final last year when they were playing through pretty heavy rain.

Light rain till 15.00

covers coming on again on anderson/berdych court

It appears to have stopped raining? Though I guess it's going to do this all day because it's all showers scheduled.

how is the rain gonna effect the courts?  It gets slowed down even more I suppose?

covers coming off on anderson/berdych court again

Slowed down, harder to slide. If it comes really heavy it becomes very hard to hit through the court. It will be terrible for Nadal but I doubt will matter for his match.

Play at 12:00 CET anyway apparently (4 minutes from now).

what about it helping serve?  that's gotta be the big question, cause that would give both Gulbis and kohlsreiber much better chances of taking a set

Er well it doesn't help anyone's serve really because it slows them down, but it comes much harder to hit through anyone. In a way it hurts Nadal's spin, but it will also hurt Gulbis to actually hit through Nadal. Overally it probably helps the players who can just blast through any conditions, so a guy like Berdych.

I mean I've seen these sort of conditions benefit Fed in the past, but at same time saw them hinder him in French Open 2010 vs Soderling.

damn, I thought it might effect the bounce in a way where it would be a bit harder to return

but overall strategywise, it might stil help big serves, since it'll be harder switching the control of rallies by the returner to start dictating play

It dampens the bounces, but it makes it slower. There aren't many obvious matches it will influence. Obviously though some people might come out fancying it more in these conditions than others, thus mentally it might, but that's impossible to judge pre-match really. You'll probably get a number of people who are losing trying to come off court saying it's unplayable lol.

great, so more tanks?

like the ones so far havent been enough

It'd definately help Simons game though if he wouldn't be playing fed

And gasquet will probably be much harder to beat now.

Any play coming up? Someone mentioned covers coming off..

Anderson Berdych seems to be starting in a few minutes

Covers are off, I don't know what they are waiting for right now. There is no work being done on the courts. They probably just don't want to start while it's raining.

Players on court.

Jankovic vs Li that is.

@atpworldtour reporting on twitter the ball is bouncing around 3-3.5cm lower than it was yesterday

Wtf they watering the Berdych Anderson court for now?

what a joke.  Watering it after rain instead of starting the match finally

Wtf. enrico maria riva ‏@enricomariariva 3m
As both players did have any warm up Na Li asked JJ if they could have a 10 minutes one. JJ agreed

You can do that???

Probably wait for the rain to return

Why is this court so far ahead of the others? The others are like 20-25 mins away from play.

I just want them to finally start the Berdych Anderson match

I'm gonna be singing that fecking tune all day now...