Naturally, the year in which U.S. Open officials finally announced plans for a roof over Arthur Ashe Stadium there was almost no rain the entire fortnight. But it finally came on Labor Day and it came in bunches.
Before the deluge, Janko Tipsarevic warmed up for his match against David Ferrer. With coach Dirk Hordoff looking on, Tipsarevic hit with former Australian Open runner-up and Wimbledon semifinalist Rainer Schuettler.
Somehow, and by a stroke of extreme luck, Roberta Vinci and Camila Giorgi got in their all-Italian showdown on the Grandstand before the heavens opened. Giorgi had stunned Caroline Wozniacki during a night session on Arthur Ashe two days earlier and she came out firing in this one as well. The 21-year-old raced to a 4-1 lead in the first set, but at that point she suddenly could barely keep a ball in the court. A steady Vinci won five consecutive games to take the opener and the more experienced of the two countrywomen lost only two games in the second. It started raining with Vinci two points from the match at 5-2 and it was borderline downpour during match point. Had Giorgi won that point to stay alive, there is no question they would have had to stop.
Thankfully Vinci won it, because the ensuing delay lasted more than four hours. Not only would it have been awful for the players to wait four hours then return to play as little as one point, but it also would have been disastrous for the fans. Vinci and Giorgi would have had to walk all the way back out to the Grandstand, warm up, play a point (or a few), do interviews, and leave. Then Ferrer and Tipsarevic would finally be able to take the stage. Instead, because Vinci and Giorgi had finished, Ferrer and Tipsarevic came out right when the rain finally stopped long enough for play to resume. Of course, the bad news of Vinci losing and losing badly is that her dad never went crazy like he did during the Wozniacki match.
In the meantime, though, it was a brutal wait. People in the media center were tweeting that this was the hardest rain they had ever seen. In the walkway between the Grandstand and Armstrong there were approximately four inches of rain. In fact, it was physically impossible to get into the Grandstand because the only “entrance” was technically an “exit” and for some reason they weren’t letting fans enter even though tennis obviously wasn’t in progress. Twice the rain stopped and twice they came out with cars to dry the court only to have it rain again just before the players were to take the court.
The Grandstand turned into nothing more than a sea of umbrellas:
Stairs flooded:
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Car-drying:
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There was more than enough time to attempt some puzzle-solving:Â 
Apparently the rain caused some technical problems:
Finally the cars came out a third time to dry the court, and at last there would be no more rain–despite plenty of threatening clouds. Ferrer-Tipsarevic was a rematch of last year’s U.S. Open quarterfinals, in which Ferrer prevailed 7-6 in the fifth. This one did not last quite as long because Ferrer survived a fourth-set tiebreaker, but there was once again a whole host of incredible baseline rallies.
Mario Ancic watching Ferrer vs. Tipsarevic:
Fans on the top row of Ashe watching Roger Federer, whose match against Tommy Robredo got moved to Armstrong:
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