Power cuts in Spain cause Jacob Fearnley’s Madrid Open match to be suspended

Britain’s Jacob Fearnley was forced off court as play was suspended at the Madrid Open due to a power outage.

The third-round tie between Fearnley and Grigor Dimitrov had reached a critical stage, Fearnley breaking the 15th seed’s serve to stay in the match, when a loss of power in the local area affected scoreboards and the camera above the court.

The positioning of the camera when it lost power meant the match could not continue even with line judges, as it was stuck in the eyeline of the players.

After remaining on court for some time the pair were eventually taken inside to wait for the issue to be rectified.

An outage has spread across Spain and to parts of Portugal and France, with work underway to restore power but the process expected to be gradual.

Red Electrica, which operates the national electricity grid in Spain, said via X: “We are beginning to recover power in the north and south of the peninsula, which is key to gradually meeting the electricity supply.

“This process involves the gradual energization of the transmission grid as the generating units are connected. We continue working to restore power.”