Power Outage Disrupts Madrid Open, Affects Spain, Portugal

A widespread power outage across Spain and Portugal on Monday forced the suspension of play at the Madrid Open tennis tournament, disrupting both men's and women's matches. The outage caused scoreboards and electronic line-calling systems to fail, left a spider cam dangling dangerously above the court, and halted post-match interviews, notably impacting players like Grigor Dimitrov, Jacob Fearnley, and Coco Gauff. Spectators experienced darkened hallways and nonfunctional card machines, while food stalls and sales points lost electricity. The ATP confirmed that two singles and one doubles match were underway when the blackout struck at 12:34 p.m. local time. The outage also affected broader infrastructure, including traffic lights, airports, metro systems, and mobile phone networks in major cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, and Lisbon. Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica and government officials are investigating the cause as efforts to restore power continue.