Pegula and Shelton into 3rd round at a rainy US Open, where some players are still stuck in first

At a rainy U.S. Open where it's a struggle to even finish the first round, Jessica Pegula was happy to quickly be into the third.

The No. 3 seed needed only 56 minutes on Wednesday to defeat Sofia Kenin 6-3, 6-1. Kenin, the 2020 Australian Open champion, beat Venus Williams in her first match.

"To be out of there in under an hour, it doesn't always happen," Pegula said. "So I think I'm just going to take that one and run, I guess, until the next round."

No. 31 seed Leylah Fernandez set up a matchup of past U.S. Open runners-up against Pegula, with the winner to meet either No. 16 Sorana Cirstea or No. 19 Jasmine Paolini.

Auger-Aliassime advances past Hijiata in opening-round win at U.S. Open

Some players won't get there for a while. With rain coming down for a second day in New York, play was suspended again for a time on outside courts, allowing only play under the roofs in Arthur Ashe Stadium and Louis Armstrong Stadium to continue uninterrupted.

No. 8 seed Ben Shelton followed Pegula on Ashe and beat Hubert Hurkacz 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (3), 7-5, while No. 7 Daniil Medvedev raced past Sebastian Gorzny — except for a brief delay to protest the chair umpire's decision to replay a point when two birds sat on the net — 6-3, 6-3, 7-5.

Defending champions Aryna Sabalenka and Carlos Alcaraz were set to play on Ashe at night. Those are second-round matches, while some players were still playing their first.

When the U.S. Open switched to a Sunday start last year, it spread out the first round over the first three days, so Wednesday would have arrived with everyone playing in the second round had the weather cooperated.

It hadn't.

Alex de Minaur, the No. 6 seed from Australia, said with all the juggling his match was moved twice from