HEAVY rains that rocked Kigali city for the larger part of yesterday forced a crucial second round ITF Men's Futures match between Jean Claude Gasigwa and Italian Picco Francesco to be abandoned at Cercle Sportif in Rugunga.

By the time the match was abandoned, Rwanda's top seed Gasigwa had lost the first set 1-6. The tournament's director Fidel Bayama confirmed yesterday that the match will resume from where it stopped today at 10am on the same venue to determine the winner.

With momentum favoring the Italian player before the rain, Gasigwa was the more relieved of the two to see the match abandoned.

But still he must find a way of winning two straight sets when play resumes this morning if he is to become the second Rwandan player to reach the quarter final, following in the footsteps of Eric Hagenimana, who achieved the feat in 2004.

In the first round, Gasigwa overwhelmed Italian and ATP ranked Francesco Vilardo to win the match in three sets 6-4 1-6 6-1. He is the only Rwandan left in the tournament following double eliminations of Dieudonne Habiyambere and Olivier Nkunda in the first round.

Both Habiyambere and Nkunda's reign came to a premature end on Monday with 2-6, 3-6 and 1-6 0-6 first round defeats against Russia's Alexander Igoshin and Italian Luca Pancaldi respectively.

The second leg (Rwanda F1 Futures) ends on Sunday and it will be followed with the third leg (Rwanda F2 Futures) from November 26 - December 2.