The ITF women’s tournament, which was part of the Japan Open and played concurrently with the ATP tournament at the same site, has been canceled to conserve power, Reuters reports. However, both WTA tournaments in Tokyo and Osaka and the ATP event, where Rafael Nadal is defending champion, will go ahead.
The Japan Open is scheduled for Oct. 3-9. "The women's event at the Japan Open, at the same time when Nadal is in Tokyo, has been called off to save on electricity," tournament official Atsuko Isoyama said. The Pan Pacific Open (the WTA event in Tokyo) is set to go on as scheduled but we're currently looking at the available data and examining ways to cut down on the use of electricity."
Canceling the ITF event will allegedly cut match schedule almost in half. Since the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami on March 11 ravaged Japan, scheduling sports events has become chaotic. Fall is the typhoon season in Japan, which often causes the tournament to play night matches under floodlights.