DELRAY BEACH — If it were a boxing match instead of tennis, it might be said that Hyeon Chung of South Korea was saved by the bell just as it appeared he would be knocked out.

A late rain storm at the Delray Beach Open Friday night forced tournament officials to delay completion of the quarterfinals match between Chung and American Frances Tiafoe with Tiafoe up two games in the deciding match.

Earlier in the day, Canada's Denis Shapovalov defeated American Taylor Fritz 7-5, 6-4, German Peter Gojowczyk beat American Reilly Opelka 7-6(3) 6-7(4) 7-6(5) and American Steve Johnson beat Russian Evgeny Donskoy 7-6(6) 6-3 to earn their way into the semifinals on Saturday. The championship match will be played on Sunday.

Despite the respite, Chung will find himself in deep hole when play resumes Saturday afternoon. Tiafoe leads the third set 5-3. At one point, he had three match points to put himself in the seminfinals but faltered a bit as Chung rallied to even the game, but a short, light rain forced a halt to play before the game was completed. Crews quickly dried the court and both players warmed up and were ready to resume the match.

And at just that point, it poured, much harder than before, water puddling on the court. Groundkeepers squeegeed the surface in a vain attempt to dry things out but ultimately the decision was made to resume play on Saturday afternoon, with the winner to take on Shapalov in the evening.

Chung at No. 8, is the last seeded player remaining in the tournament. What had earlier seemed to be a battle among some of the best players in the world for the singles title has evolved into a fight among some of the ATP's rising stars, the so-called Next-Gen players, those 21 and under.