A power failure has plunged the Caja Magica sports complex in Madrid into darkness, forcing the suspension of matches at the ongoing tennis tournament.
Journalists and press office staff, with elevators out of service and corridors in darkness, have been forced to power down their computers to conserve battery life.
"We’ve been waiting for the power to return and for Świątek to play. The outage started about half an hour ago, and we thought it would be brief, but it’s still going," said a Polish couple on-site at 1 PM.
Update: Blackout disrupts tennis tournament in Spain
A nationwide power cut in Spain on Monday, April 28, forced the cancellation of both the day and night sessions at the Mutua Madrid Open, according to an official statement. The outage, which also impacted parts of Portugal and France, occurred around 12:30 PM, causing significant disruptions, including non-functional traffic lights and metro systems in Madrid, as reported by EFE.
"For reasons beyond the control of the organisation and in order to ensure public safety, the power failure led to the suspension of the scheduled sessions," the statement added.
Before the blackout, only three of the 16 singles matches had been completed. Among the results, American Coco Gauff (4th seed) defeated Switzerland's Belinda Bencic 6-4, 6-2, while Russia’s Mirra Andrieva (7th seed) triumphed over Ukraine’s Yulia Starodubtseva 6-1, 6-4.
Gauff revealed that, due to the power outage, she was unable to shower after her match.
In the quarterfinals, Coco Gauff will face Mirra Andreeva.