A national power outage brought the Madrid Open to a standstill on Monday, forcing players, including Britain’s Jacob Fearnley, off court in the middle of matches.
Fearnley, who had saved a match point in his third-round encounter against Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov, was about to serve to stay in the match at 6-4, 5-4 down when the power cut struck the main court.
The outage disabled the electronic line-calling system and scoreboards, halting proceedings.
Initially, officials planned to continue play with the umpire making manual line calls.
However, a spider camera, which hangs low over the court, had become stuck in players’ eyelines, prompting further delays. Eventually, the umpire led the players off court and back to the locker rooms.
The announcement was made on Madrid Open’s official Instagram page.
Spain’s electricity grid operator, Red Eléctrica, confirmed widespread power outages across the country and said efforts were under way to restore service.
E-Redes, a grid monitoring company, described the blackout as part of a wider European problem, noting that power was being re-established in phases.
The disruption extended beyond the tennis courts. Reports indicated that traffic lights were out in Madrid, causing traffic jams, while parts of the city’s underground railway system were evacuated.
Similar outages were reported in Portugal, where the metro systems in Lisbon and Porto were closed and train services suspended.
Fearnley, from Scotland, is one of three British men scheduled to compete in the third round in Madrid on Monday.
Cameron Norrie is set to face Canada’s Gabriel Diallo, while British number one Jack Draper is due to take on Italy’s Matteo Berrettini.
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