The men's singles and doubles finals at the USD 380,000 Kingfisher Airlines Open tennis tournament in Mumbai on Sunday were rescheduled due to wet court conditions following continuous rain.
The two finals would be held on Monday, tournament director Gaurav Natekar announced after the decision to cancel the day's play was taken at 1815 IST on Sunday.
After an almost entire rain-free week, sharp thundershowers followed by steady drizzles made no play possible today at the Cricket Club of India courts.
Third seed Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic, the world no. 13 was to play fourth seed Dmitry Tursunov of Russia, ranked 23rd, for the singles title.
The doubles final was between the Indian duo of Rohan Bopanna and Mustafa Ghouse and the Indo-Croatian pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Mario Ancic.
Natekar said that ATP had a rule by which one reserve day is fixed for the finals and the organizers have decided to take that option.
"If no play is possible tomorrow too then the two finalists would be declared as joint runners up and each of them would get the runner up prize money and the same number of points for ending up as runner up," Natekar explained.
The runner up prize money for singles is USD 30,600 and for doubles it's 9,600. The two opponents in the men's final would each receive 24 race points and 120 entry points if no play is possible tomorrow too.
"We tried out best to start play from 2.30 pm onwards and had even started drying out the court at around 4 pm and had succeeded in drying 70 per cent of the court when another drizzle came and stopped our effort," Natekar said.
"We had initially decided to take a call at 7.30 pm but after another bout of drizzle after 6 pm decided to cancel play for the day.
"We can't keep the crowds waiting endlessly and with there being no sunlight drying process would also have taken time even if rain had stopped," the tournament director said.
Natekar said the organisers had the option to cover the court with a plastic sheet tomorrow morning, but ATP communications manager Stephen Duckitt said hard courts all over the world don't use covers as water generally seeps under them and they make the court sweat too.
In the semi-finals, US-based Russian Tursunov on Saturday knocked out top seed Tommy Robredo (7-6 (2), 3-6, 6-1) while Berdych had ended the splendid run of former top-20 player Stefan Koubek in two straight sets (7-6 (2), 6-2).
In the doubles semi-finals that ended well past midnight Bopanna and Ghouse subdued James Auckland and Jamie Delgado of Britain 4-6, 6-3, 10-7.
In an earlier quarter-final tie, the Ancic-Bhupathi pair outsmarted India's Leander Paes and his makeshift partner Aisam Qureshi of Pakistan in three sets (6-1, 5-7, 10-3).
The winners entered the final because their semi-final rivals Simon Gruel and Denis Gremelmayr of Germany had pulled out because of a hip injury sustained by the latter.
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