PARIS (AP) A day late, two women's semifinals are underway at the French Open, played simultaneously on separate courts to squeeze them in after a rain-wrecked week before the final on Saturday.
Had damp weather not thrown off the schedule, Serena Williams, Kiki Bertens, Garbine Muguruza and Samantha Stosur normally would have played their semifinals on Thursday, leaving the finalists a full day of rest before the championship match.
But unrelenting rain that washed out a whole day of play on Monday, for the first time in 16 years, and other wet-weather delays nixed those plans.
Instead of being played one after the other on the main Court Philippe Chatrier, they're now playing at the same time. Defending champion Williams is up against the unseeded Bertens on Chatrier, with fourth-seeded Muguruza and No. 24 Stosur next door on Court Suzanne Lenglen.
