Estoril Tennis; Del Potro, Soderling, Anderson and a Host of Others Plus Rain

“Rain, Rain, go away, so we can come on back another day.”

Those were the sentiments I’m sure for this year's Estoril Open in Portugal, with the men of the (http://atpworldtour.com/) today.

Although several matches were already in progress, the rain and darkness got the tournament director’s attention, and they stopped play all together.

The four matches that drew to a close included the doubles team of Marc Lopez (ESP) and David Marrero (ESP). They defeated Carlos Berloq (ARG) and Pere Riba (ESP) 6-3, 6-3 in three quarters of an hour.

Lopez and Marrero hope to receive their third title together after the match on Sunday. They will face Eric Butorac (USA) and Jean-Julien Rojer (AHO) who overcame Rohan Bopanna (IND) and Aisam Ul-Haq Quireshi (PAK) 6-2, 6-4 in a little bit over an hour.

Juan Martin Del Potro also had the opportunity to finish his match. Del Potro (ARG) defeated the No. 1 seeded Robin Soderling (SWE) 6-4, 7-5. Pablo Cuevas (URU) also finished, defeating Thomas Belucci (BRA) 6-4, 6-2. (http://tinyurl.com/5stqxxz)

Out of the fourth meeting between Robin Soderling and Juan Martin Del Potro, it was Del Potro who finished his match with a new stat of 4-0 W/L this day.

This Soderling/Del Potro quarterfinal match lasted just shy of two hours. The rain delay had them stop at 3:47 pm and come back to complete the match at 7:15 pm. Del Potro was a shining star in the first set and had to knock off some rust for the delay to start up again.

"I had to really focus, with the rain delay," said Del Potro. Soderling mentioned that "I had good momentum before the rain, I was playing better. I don't think I played much worse after the rain, but he raised his level.”

Del Potro next faces Pablo Cuevas. With an hour and 15 minutes of play before the rain came, Kevin Anderson took the first set off Fernando Verdasco with a score of 7-6(2).