Chaos, candles and long walks - how Madrid Open survived Spain's power blackout

It was a challenging day for many, while some tennis stars saw it as a humbling experience

Candlelit lunches, physio sessions in the dark, three-hour walks to the city centre, and Pringles for dinner … these are just some of the stories shared by tennis players at the Madrid Open after a shocking Monday that saw all of Spain lose power for nearly 10 hours.

Coco Gauff had just wrapped up her fourth-round victory over Belinda Bencic and was midway through her on-court interview when the Caja Magica venue suddenly lost power.

The American thought it was just the microphone that failed and was escorted off court by tournament security. When they took the stairs instead of the lift, she didn’t think twice about it.

It wasn’t until she reached the locker room area that she realised there was a problem.

“It was pitch black, that’s when I got the gist that the power went out,” recounted Gauff.

“But I just thought it was, like, a here thing, and then I realised it's the whole country, so that's insane.”

There was no running water in the locker room, so Gauff used some baby wipes and sprayed some perfume before heading to talk to the press.

She and her next opponent Mirra Andreeva, along with Italian Matteo Arnaldi on the men’s side, were the only three players to complete their matches on Monday before the power cut struck and halted play.

Initially, Gauff had made a request to the tournament supervisors to avoid that first slot on the schedule. She was ultimately grateful they didn’t listen to her because playing early worked to her advantage.

“Shout-out to the WTA supervisors for making the right decision for me,” she said with a laugh.

The power cut could not have come at a worse time for Grigor Dimitrov, who held match point and served for the match against Jacob Fearnley, but got broken before the electricity cut off.

The Bulgarian was seen sunbathing in a quiet area outside the stadium, patiently waiting, and no doubt wondering, how he could not close out the win when he had the chance.

Doubles player Fernando Romboli got stuck in an lift on-site for over 30 minutes before they were able to get him out.

As players waited to find out more about the gravity of the situation, tournament staff began distributing candles in the player restaurant. Player quarters are split across two floors connected to the Manolo Santana stadium and every inch of those quarters was occupied by a player or a member of their staff.

The warm up/cool down area upstairs had a few players getting worked on by their physiotherapists blissfully in the dark while downstairs, people were either fuelling up on food or waiting for news.

Play for the day was officially cancelled about four hours after the power initially cut and that’s when chaos ensued, with hundreds rushing to the transport desk hoping to get a car back to their hotels.

With the power out, the metro system was suspended and traffic lights weren’t functioning. Traffic police were sent out to the streets to organise the flow of cars but Madrid was understandably gridlocked and leaving the stadium became a serious challenge. It didn’t help that the PA system, which was still working, was incessantly instructing everyone to leave the site immediately “for safety reasons”.

“I legitimately thought we were going to end up sleeping here,” said world No 5 Madison Keys on Tuesday.

“And luckily the catering, they just kept pulling out bread and fruit and they kept us fuelled to some capacity.”

Keys, along with the likes of Frances Tiafoe, Jakub Mensik, and many other players only managed to leave the stadium around 7pm, some three hours after play was cancelled for the day. Players were dropped off at centralised locations so the cars would be able to get back quicker to the tennis stadium.

“We were thinking it's gonna be like a 30-minute, hour thing, then people started putting candles on our table. We’re like oh, the whole Spain is out of power. OK, that's cool. Put another candle on the table,” Tiafoe told reporters on Tuesday.

“France is out of power too. OK, that's cool. You know, then they're like Italy's out of power. I'm like, ‘Well stop putting candles on the table’.”

For many of us, walking was the only option, even with Google Maps telling us our hotels were two and a half hours away. It wasn’t just a long walk, it was hilly, and we were all under pressure trying to make it back to our hotels before sunset.

Phone service was out for the majority of the blackout, which added to the general level of anxiety across the city.

On the walk back, which saw us climb steep pedestrian bridges to cross train tracks and walk through dark tunnels with cars whizzing past us, the few open supermarkets had large queues outside with people preparing for the worst and using any cash they had to stock up on supplies.

With no cash in hand, and no food at my hotel, a friend offered to buy me Pringles for dinner, which incidentally is what French player Alexandre Muller had to settle for, given there was no food at his hotel.

Tiafoe had chocolate for dinner and said he felt “a bit funny” towards the end of his match on Tuesday, so did Keys, who felt “low on energy” during her win over Donna Vekic.

For some players, being off the grid was a welcome change of pace.

A member of the media checks the Madrid Open draw using the torch on his mobile phone. Getty Images

Alex de Minaur and Iga Świątek enjoyed the fact they were forced to be off their phones for a while, while Stefanos Tsitsipas said the power cut didn’t affect his day much, given he would have spent it reading and hanging out with his girlfriend Paula Badosa and her team anyway.

Dimitrov didn’t beat himself up much for the missed match point, and said he grew up with frequent power cuts when he was young in Bulgaria, and in a way, felt prepared for a strange day like this.

“It just shows you how quickly anything can change in life as well. From one point, you’re serving for the match, from the other you’re about to receive, and then the lights went out. I always take these type of situations as a learning curve,” he said.

It took Dimitrov three hours to get back to his hotel by car, but he is acutely aware there were many people across the city who went through way more challenging circumstances.

“Some guys were stranded for 10 hours, cleaning the windows outside a building. I mean, it was crazy. I just saw it (on the news),” said Dimitrov.

“So on a big scheme, like what happened, it's nothing like here. We were all in a safer environment, and everyone looked after us the best way possible.

“Was it difficult to go back to the hotels and all that? Yeah, of course. But it's the same for everyone. There's no exception. And that's what I'm saying. It's when things like that happen, you realise really the bigger picture. What about the hospitals and things? Airports, anything, like that. So when you look at it like that, I mean, sorry, it's OK.”

Tiafoe echoed Dimitrov’s sentiments, adding: “Just had to realise how it normalises everything, everyone. Some things are so much bigger than you and kind of just take it for what it is.”

Power gradually returned starting 8:30pm on Monday across the city but it was only restored at the Caja Magica at 9:00am on Tuesday morning.

Everything immediately fell back into place here at the tennis, and it was almost like nothing happened, barring my sore legs from climbing all those steep streets.