Hectic French Open schedule after rained-off day

Thursday's schedule at Roland Garros will be a hectic one with three men's quarter-finals and two women's semi-finals to be played on centre court after rain had the final word at the French Open on Wednesday.

But Organisers said the weather forecast for Thursday was "dry" and hoped the five crunch matches would go ahead.

There had been speculation that some of the matches could be switched to Court Suzanne Leglen, the second showcourt at Roland Garros, but no tickets had been sold for that court on Thursday, organisers added.

Thursday's programme is set to start at 0900 GMT with the resumption of the quarter-final between Spaniard Alex Corretja and Romanian Andrei Pavel.

Corretja, a two-times finalist, was leading 7-6 7-5 4-5 when play was stopped on Tuesday evening because of bad light.

Yet this match might not go ahead as Pavel rushed back to his home in Germany on Wednesday morning to join his wife Simone, who is expecting to give birth to their second child.

Chief umpire Stefan Fransson of Sweden said that the Romanian would forfeit the match if he failed to show up on court at 0900 GMT on Thursday.

FINAL WORD

Rain had the final word on Wednesday when officials finally allowed Andre Agassi and Juan Carlos Ferrero to leave centre court in drizzling rain and fading daylight.

The two will resume their quarter-final on Thursday with Ferrero leading 6-3 1-0.

The third men's quarter-final between Russian second seed Marat Safin and France's Sebastien Grosjean will then follow.

The two women's semi-finals between second seed Venus Williams and Clarisa Fernandez, third-seeded Serena Williams and defending champion Jennifer Capriati will take place later.

There was some controversy on Wednesday over the decision to call Ferrero and Agassi back on court after a five-hour break just to play 10 minutes.

Fransson called the players off court at 1710 GMT -- more than five hours after torrential showers had halted their match for the first time.

The pair had managed to play barely 10 minutes in light rain when Agassi asked for Fransson.

The Swede was already walking on to court and both players left to whistles and jeers from the 200 hardy souls who had braved a day of diabolical weather in the French capital.

COMPENSATION

Organisers had desperately tried to keep the match going but they will have to pay compensation to ticket holders because less than two hours of tennis was played.

Ferrero and Agassi only stayed on court for 36 minutes altogether.

Organisers insisted that, even if the weather should deteriorate on Thursday, they would keep all matches on centre court.

Moving the women's semi-finals on to an outside court is sure to infuriate some of them who felt slighted that their quarter-finals were played on Suzanne Lenglen.

Unseasonably cold weather and rain lashed the French capital all day long.

The start of action had been delayed for 90 minutes due to a violent storm and torrential rainfall.

Court workers uncovered the centre court several times during the day, lifting fans' hopes but, on each occasion, a new cloud-burst foiled organisers' plans.