Top seed Novak Djokovic moved into the quarter-finals at the Aegon International before rain brought an early finish in Eastbourne on Wednesday.
The interruption was the second major hit on the Wimbledon warm-up event after a near-total washout on Tuesday.
With the women’s draw 64 players strong and the men’s half that size, WTA third-round matches were backed up at an event that is to finish tomorrow.
Photo: AP
Djokovic passed his first grass-court test of the season, defeating Canadian qualifier Vasek Pospisil 6-4, 6-3.
The Serbian is playing a pre-Wimbledon tournament for the first time since 2010 and next faces Donald Young, who beat Jared Donaldson 6-4, 7-5.
“I’m glad that I came here to Eastbourne,” Djokovic said. “I have had a great couple of days of training with good players, different styles of game. Yesterday it obviously wasn’t really enjoyable to see the rain falling all day, but today we almost played a full match, so I’m glad for that. I felt good on the court, considering it’s the first match.”
In the first round, Russian Daniil Medvedev knocked out fifth seed Sam Querrey, beating the American 6-3, 7-5. German Mischa Zverev, seeded sixth, beat Ryan Harrison 6-4, 7-6 (11/9).
Seventh seed Richard Gasquet stopped Frances Tiafoe 5-7, 7-6 (7/4), 6-3.
On the women’s side, Angelique Kerber recovered to beat Czech Kristyna Pliskova 4-6, 6-1, 7-5, as the German returned to action for the first time since her first-round defeat at the French Open.
Kerber is fighting to hold onto her world No. 1 ranking and withdrew from last week’s Birmingham event with a hamstring strain.
She trained in Mallorca after recovering from her injury, but has yet to capture a title this year or beat an opponent inside the top 20.
Simona Halep rallied to defeat China’s Duan Yingying 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, while Tsvetana Pironkova thumped Monica Niculescu of Romania 6-0, 6-4.
In qualifiers for Wimbledon involving Taiwanese, Chen Ti missed out, losing in the second round of the men’s singles 7-5, 6-2 to Gerald Melzer of Austria.
In the men’s doubles, Hsieh Cheng-peng and Max Schnur of the US defeated Uruguay’s Ariel Behar and Aliaksandr Bury of Belarus 7-6, 7-5 (6/3), while Peng Hsien-yin and partner Sander Arends of the Netherlands were defeated 7-6, 6-4 by Johan Brunstrom and Andreas Siljestrom of Sweden.
Elsewhere, John McEnroe on Wednesday refused to retract his assertion that Serena Williams would be ranked about No. 700 if she had to play on the men’s circuit.
“This is not something that has been earth shattering, that I feel there’s a difference in the level of the women and the men,” he said.
“It would have been better not to have said it,” he said.
“I didn’t realize it would create something like this [controversy],” he told reporters on an ESPN conference call. “It would have been easier to leave it. Look, she’s a great player, and it’s apples and oranges.”
This came despite footage emerging of Williams herself telling David Letterman on late-night television that she would not be able to compete with players on the men’s circuit.
“No, it’s true. It’s a completely different sport,” she said in the 2013 interview. “The men are a lot faster and they serve harder, they hit harder, it’s just a different game. I love to play women’s tennis. I only want to play girls, because I don’t want to be embarrassed.”
Additional reporting by staff writer and Reuters
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