Del Potro into semis, Nadal, Gonzalez rained off

Sixth seed Argentine Juan Martin Del Potro roared into his second grand slam semi-final of the year with a 4-6 6-3 6-2 6-1 victory over Croatian 16th seed Marin Cilic at the U.S. Open on Thursday. After winning the first set and holding a 3-1 lead in the second, Cilic started spraying his groundstrokes and the demoralised Croat lost 17 of the final 20 games of the match. Cilic had 53 unforced errors, compared to just 24 for Del Potro. The Argentine, one of tour's hottest players, converted all eight of his break-point opportunities. Del Potro, who reached the last four at the French Open, will face the winner of the match between third seed Rafael Nadal and number 11 Fernando Gonzalez. But their quarter-final showdown was suspended because of rain later on Thursday. Nadal was leading 7-6 2-2 when rain first stopped play but upon resumption, they managed to go on for another 35 minutes before another shower burst halted proceedings with Gonzalez serving at 2-3 down in the second-set tiebreak. The first interruption lasted for 75 minutes in what was the first rain stoppage of the championships after 10 days of dry weather. Nadal and the Chilean were kept on court for a few minutes before leaving Arthur Ashe Stadium for the locker room. Five-times champion Roger Federer and fourth seed Novak Djokovic will contest the other semi-final of the year's final grand slam tournament.