A major power outage across Spain and Portugal forced officials to suspend matches at the Madrid Open tennis tournament Monday.
The outage hit in the middle of several matches around 12:34 p.m. local time, the ATP said. Electronic line judging systems went down, and a spider camera was left hanging over a court. The rest of the day and evening’s matches were all suspended and moved to Tuesday. The ATP said 22 matches were cancelled. Parts of Madrid started regaining power later Monday.
Coco Gauff was in an on-court interview following her win when the power to her microphone and around the stadium cut out. She later posted on Instagram from a dark locker room. “No power where the showers are. So I’m about to take a shower and I’ll let you all know how it goes,” Gauff said.
The WTA said Iga Swiatek “sat in the darkened players’ lounge, talking with members of her team” during the outage.
The Madrid Open is an ATP and WTA 1,000 event, meaning it is on the same level as tournaments including Indian Wells, and one level below the four Grand Slams. The finals are scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.
Some players continued practicing while spectators watched on before eventually departing for the day. Fans exited the venue in partial darkness, some using their phones as flashlights to see where they were going.
The matches that were underway when the outage hit will resume with the same score Tuesday, the ATP confirmed on its schedule.
Red Eléctrica de España, the country’s power operator, said the “causes are being analyzed” to determine why the Iberian peninsula lost electricity. Some reports have suggested changes in the weather may have impacted the power lines, a phenomenon called induced atmospheric vibration.
