Madrid Open to resume play after huge power outage across Spain and Portugal

Play was halted on Monday as a huge power outage rocked Spain and Portugal

The Madrid Open will resume play this morning after the tennis tournament was hit by the vast power outage across Spain and Portugal on Monday.

The Iberian Peninsula all but ground to a halt when a still-unexplained outage rocked vast areas of its two countries, leading to a state of emergency being declared. Traffic was gridlocked, flights grounded and trains suspended while people were trapped in elevators and left without water supplies.

The Madrid Open also felt the brunt of the outage, with 15th seed Grigor Dimitrov and his British opponent Jacob Fearnley forced to leave the court as scoreboards went dark and overhead cameras lost power. The round-of-32 match at the Manolo Santana Stadium – where Dimitrov led Fearnley 6-4, 5-4 – had to be stopped due to a spidercam being left hanging too close to the court.

Fourth seed Coco Gauff, who beat Belinda Bencic 6-4, 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals, had her post-match interview at the Arantxa Sánchez Stadium cut short with the microphone losing power. Electronic line-calling systems were also affected by the power cut, the ATP said, while spectators shared pictures of dark hallways at the Manzanares Park Tennis Center.

The rest of the day’s play was eventually postponed entirely “in order to guarantee the safety of the players, fans and personnel at the Caja Mágica.”

However, it has now been confirmed by the organisers that the “power supply has been restored at the Caja Mágica”, allowing play to resume.

Gates will open at 11am local time (10am BST) “to ensure the proper functioning of the entire facility”, with play beginning an hour later at 12pm (11am BST) as originally scheduled.

The Madrid Open went dark after a power outage across Spain and Portugal (Getty)

Second seed Iga Swiatek kicks off the day’s action against Diana Shnaider, before Dimitrov and Fearnley finish off their contest at the Manolo Santana.

Stefanos Tsitsipas will then take to the court before Alexander Zverev, the top seed remaining, faces Argentine player Francisco Cerundolo.

British No.2 Cameron Norrie will look to keep his Madrid Open campaign alive against Gabriel Diallo of Canada, while the likes of Madison Keys and Aryna Sabalenka are also in action.