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Top seeds complain after losing in rain at French Open

“I mean, it’s not a US$10,000 (S$13,764) tournament”.

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Second-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska is out of the French Open, losing to Tsvetana Pironkova 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 Tuesday in the fourth round.

“It’s not a tournament”.

“I’m just so surprised and angry that we have to play in the rain”, she said.

“I don’t know who allows us to play in that kind of conditions”, Radwanska added, saying her racket-wielding right hand gave her problems because she had surgery on it years ago. Once again, I have joked about it the other day, saying things were slow, a bit slow in France.

After play was suspended on Sunday due to rain, Radwanska began Tuesday with a commanding 6-2, 3-0 lead over Tsvetana Pironkova, a player ranked 100 spots below her.

Halep didn’t even win a set in her match as No. 21 Samantha Stosur of Australia posted a 7-6 (0), 6-3 victory.

Before Svitolina could retaliate with a ideal cross-court backhand, Williams had already warmed up making it impossible for Ukraine’s player to stop her from taking game after game. No one cares about the players, in my opinion.

Gulbis led Goffin 3-0 in the first set on Court One when play was eventually halted but not before Goffin had complained over the conditions which he claimed were too risky.

The fourth-round match between top-ranked men’s player Novak Djokovic and 14th-seeded Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain was delayed for two hours after Agut won the first set. But under those hard conditions in Paris on Tuesday, Halep looked a totally different player who was unable to solve the Stosur riddle.

Holders Serena Williams and Stan Wawrinka and British second seed Andy Murray, who takes on local favourite Richard Gasquet in the quarterfinals, were also on rained-off schedule.

Sam Stosur flies into the Roland Garros semis for the first time since 2012. If it gets too wet, youve got to say something, ” Stosur said.

Their match had been played in two spells between the rain with the first halted after 37 minutes with the top seed having dropped the first set.

Djokovic split the first two sets with Bautista Agut as they went on and off court, able to get a total of only 2 hours of playing time.

Williams was the runner-up to younger sibling Serena at Roland Garros in 2002, but her most recent trip to the quarterfinals in Paris came all the way back in 2006.

Their match was suspended on Sunday night and could not resume on Monday because of the rain that washed out play at the clay-court Grand Slam.

The former US Open champion has struggled of late but is now through to her first Grand Slam quarter-final for four years. She said the players were told to play and so they did. “In my opinion [Stosur] played really well and she deserved to win”. Not surprisingly, she had taken a strong lead by the time play was halted, 6-2, 3-0. Muguruza is already into the quarterfinals; the other three were scheduled to play in the fourth round later Tuesday, but those matches were postponed until Wednesday.

Roland Garros remains the only one of the four Grand Slam tournaments not to have a court with a roof.

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Tennis: Both Agnieszka Radwanska and Simona Halep have blamed the conditions in Paris for their round 4 French Open exits.

Djokovic on center court at French Open after washout