Mirra Andreeva had just stepped up to the baseline to serve for a place in the Madrid Open quarter-finals when the power went out.
A sweeping outage left millions in Spain, Portugal and parts of France without power, causing chaos across many regions.
At the Spanish tennis tournament, the electronic line-calling system went down, with players and the chair umpire left to call the lines, while the scoreboards also went dark.
On the main court, where Britain’s Jacob Fearnley was about to serve to stay in the match against Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, the ‘spider cam’ that hovers above court stopped right in the players’ eyeline, preventing them from serving.
Russia’s Andreeva served out victory but admitted afterwards it wasn’t easy, saying: “It was 15-40 on my serve and I was like, Oh, Mirra, just please, please do everything in your power to just take this game and finish this match.”
Across Spain, traffic lights went out and trains stopped running, with Brazilian doubles player Fernando Romboli posting on Instagram that he was stuck in a lift, external at the tournament for 30 minutes.
Fearnley and Dimitrov had to leave court with the match poised at 6-4 5-4 in Dimitrov’s favour, while Andreeva, Coco Gauff and Italian Matteo Arnaldi managed to complete their respective victories.
“So far, the toughest thing has been not been able to shower after my match,” American Gauff said on Monday.
“There’s no running water so I just had to take baby wipes and wipe myself, spray some perfume and call it a day.
“It’s just crazy how much we depend on electricity. It’s really insane.”
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