Play at the Madrid Open came to an unexpected halt on Monday after a large-scale power outage swept through the Spanish capital, interrupting matches and forcing 15th seed Grigor Dimitrov and his British opponent Jacob Fearnley off the court as scoreboards went dark and overhead cameras lost power.
Their round of 32 match at the Manolo Santana Stadium, where Dimitrov was leading Fearnley 6-4 5-4, had to be suspended when a spidercam was left dangling too close to the court.
Fourth seed Coco Gauff, who had just secured a 6-4 6-2 victory over Belinda Bencic to advance to the quarter-finals, saw her post-match interview at the Arantxa Sanchez Stadium cut short when the microphone suddenly lost power.
The ATP confirmed that the power failure also disrupted the electronic line-calling systems, adding to the chaos, while spectators shared photos of darkened hallways throughout the Manzanares Park Tennis Center.
“Two singles matches and one doubles match at the ATP Masters 1000 event were underway when power was lost at 12:34 p.m. local time,” the ATP stated on its official website.
Matteo Arnaldi, who had upset Novak Djokovic on Saturday, was leading Damir Dzumhur 6-3 3-2 when their round of 32 clash was also brought to a sudden stop.
“We are working to restore normality as soon as possible,” tournament organizers assured as efforts to resolve the situation continued.
Local media reported that the outage also impacted traffic lights, several airports, and parts of the Madrid underground system. Spanish power grid operator Red Electrica confirmed it was collaborating with energy companies to bring power back to affected areas
Discover more from LN247
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
