TORONTO. Aug 7: Only three Sarnes were played at the Cana-ian Open men's tennis tournament on Thursday and fourth seed Yevgeny Kafelnikov won them all. reports Reuters.

Kafelnikov and Malivai Washington played for all of 12 minutes with the Russian taking a 3-0 lead in their third-round match before rain chased them off Centre Court.

Persistent drizzle that occasionally turned to heavy showers eventually forced postponement of all eight scheduled third-round matches, including top seed Pete Sampras' night match with German Tommy Haas.

Tournament director Jane Wynne said the plan for today was to try to play the third round and quarterfinals.

"'Cancelling is very disappointing for us because we had probably the strongest schedule we've ever had for one day." said Wynne. "The forecast for today is for showers ending by about 11 am and the weather is supposed to get better as the weekend goes on."

In addition to the Wimbledon champion's contest with Haas, the programme featured several intriguing matchups, including third seed Patrick Rafter, the reigning US Open champion, against fellow Australian Mark Philippoussis: and red hot eighth seed Andre Agassi against Wimbledon runner-up Goran Ivanisevic.