Madrid Tennis Tournament Disrupted by Power Outage

MADRID, MONDAY – The power outage in several regions of Spain and Portugal disrupted the ATP Masters/WTA 1000 Madrid tennis tournament. Almost all matches scheduled for Monday (28/4/2025) were canceled and will be rescheduled for Tuesday.

Of the 26 matches that were supposed to take place on Monday, only four were completed before the power outage at Caja Magica, Madrid, Spain. This tennis complex serves as the venue for the ATP Masters 1000 clay court tournament for men and the WTA 1000 for women. The ATP/WTA Madrid, held since 2002, is one of the warm-up tournaments for the French Open Grand Slam, the pinnacle of competition on clay courts.

The power outage occurred on Monday starting at 12:34 local time (17:34 WIB). Not only did it cause the lights to go out, the incident also caused the line calling and spider cam system to stop working. Line calling is a system that replaces the work of the line judge to call the ball's bounce, in or out. Meanwhile, the spider cam is used to record the ball's bounce and the recording will be shown when the tennis player requests a replay.

The tournament organizing committee stated that there was no other option but to halt the matches on Monday to ensure the safety of the players and their teams, the spectators, and the committee. Once it was confirmed that the power outage could not be restored quickly, spectators were asked to leave the competition arena.

The incident, as stated by the Spanish electricity operator (REE), affected 35 percent of the electricity needs in the country. Traffic lights and shop lights went out, causing parts of Madrid to be plunged into darkness. A similar situation occurred in Portugal, which began to recover since midnight on Monday.

The power outage caused the match between Grigor Dimitrov and Jacob Freanly to be halted while Dimitrov was leading 6-4, 5-4. Five-time Grand Slam singles champion, Iga Swiatek, sat in the waiting room with her prospective opponent, Diana Shnaider, in the dark.

The 2023 US Open women's singles champion, Cori "Coco" Gauff, is preparing to shower in the players' locker room after defeating Belinda Bencic 6-4, 6-2 in the fourth round. "I ended up just wiping my body with wet wipes and spraying some perfume," said Coco, who will face Mirra Andreeva in the quarterfinals.

Andreeva was also able to complete her fourth-round match against Yulia Starodubtseva with a victory of 6-1, 6-4. The meeting between Coco and Andreeva will take place for the third time after Coco won in the third round of the French Open and the second round of the 2023 US Open.

In the men's singles, only Matteo Arnaldi was able to complete his match on Monday, winning against Damir Dzumhur in the third round. Arnaldi won with a score of 6-3, 6-4 and is awaiting his opponent in the next round, either Frances Tiafoe or Alexandre Mueller.

In addition to the matches that were postponed a day earlier, Tuesday will be a busy day with the fourth round being contested. The top seeds in men's and women's singles, namely Alexander Zverev and Aryna Sabalenka, will be in action. Zverev will face Frencisco Cerundolo, while Sabalenka will compete against Peyton Stearns. (AFP/AP)