Only Rain Gets in Way of Federer, Roddick

Friday wasn’t a total washout at Wimbledon. But almost.

Neither men’s semifinal match was completed, and when rain was still falling here at 8 p.m., play was canceled.

Defending champion and top-seeded Roger Federer was well on his way to his 23rd consecutive grass-court victory, leading 10th-seeded Sebastien Grosjean of France, 6-2, 6-3, 4-3, and second-seeded Andy Roddick was leading unseeded 20-year-old Mario Ancic of Croatia, 6-4, 4-3, 30-40.

Federer, who was playing flawless grass-court tennis despite the on-and-off nature of the day, and Grosjean started on Centre Court and will return there today. Roddick and Ancic were to have followed on Centre Court, but when it was clear that rain would be an issue Friday, their match was moved to Court 1.

The women’s final between top-seeded, two-time defending champion Serena Williams and 13th-seeded Maria Sharapova is scheduled to start after the men’s semifinals.

Two entire days have been washed out at this Wimbledon, and for only the third time in history at the All England Club, tennis was played on the middle Sunday. Today’s forecast is for blustery showers most of the day.

Federer and Grosjean started their match a few minutes late and were able to play only 23 minutes before it began raining. They were brought back on the court twice, but light rain sent them back to the locker room.

The longest rain delay was 4 hours 43 minutes. When blue sky appeared, all four men’s semifinalists were sent quickly onto the courts. Roddick broke Ancic once, in the ninth game of the first set, and then served it out. The American got his second service break in the fifth game of the second set but faces the tough job of saving his own break point as soon as play resumes today.

Also today in doubles, Martina Navratilova and Lisa Raymond are scheduled to play Ai Sugiyama of Japan and Liezel Huber of Russia in the semifinals. Navratilova and Raymond, who will represent the U.S. at the Olympics, beat France’s Marion Bartoli and Emilie Loit, 6-2, 6-4, Friday.