Rain puts Henman's bid for the semis on hold

For Wimbledon read Roland Garros. Tim Henman was left kicking his heels in the men's locker room at the French Open today as rain played havoc with the schedule.

He was due to face Juan Ignacio Chela, one of four Argentine clay court experts in the men's quarter-finals in Paris, but there was every chance he would not even be able to start the match, let alone complete it, today.

So he could find himself playing on the second Wednesday of the tournament - not bad for a man who had never got past the first week in eight previous attempts.

Just two women's quarter-finals were finished as a series of heavy showers hit the event, with No14 seed Paola Suarez accounting for Russian teenager Maria Sharapova 6-1, 6-3, and Jennifer Capriati beating Serena Williams for the second time in a month. Capriati, 28, and champion-here in 2001, clinched victory in a tense and scrappy match played in light drizzle on a sodden centre court. She will next face either Russia's Anastasia Myskina or Serena's elder sister Venus for a place in the final.

Having lost eight times in a row to Serena, Capriati beat her fellow former world No1 in the semi-finals of the Rome Masters in May.

Triple champion Gustavo Kuerten and Spain's Carlos Moya, the 1998 champion, plus that quartet of Argentines - Chela, David Nalbandian,Guillermo Coria and Gaston Gaudio - were all expected to make it deep into the second week here. However, the presence of Henman and Australia's Lleyton Hewitt is a real surprise. Hewitt , the former Wimbledon and US Open winner who has equalled his previous best here - the 2001 quarter-finals - is just happy to have another English speaker around.