Jacob Fearnley has not been a full-time professional player for a full year, yet on an unforgettable Monday afternoon in Madrid, he found himself in a bizarre scenario that many of the best players in the world would struggle with.
Fearnley, a qualifier at the Madrid Open, had been mounting a courageous last stand against the veteran 14th seed, Grigor Dimitrov, when the city and country came to a standstill. With Dimitrov leading 6-4, 5-4 in Manolo Santana Stadium, both players were sent off the court as it became clear that Monday’s power outage that left Spain and Portugal without electricity would force the tournament to suspend all matches for the day. For Fearnley, this meant he had over 24 hours to ponder how exactly that crucial service game would pan out: “It’s impossible not to overthink it,” he said.
After about 10 hours without electricity and mobile internet for most people in Madrid, power to homes and phones returned late on Monday night, prompting cheers in the streets. At the Caja Mágica, which is situated in the southern neighbourhood of San Fermín, power returned at around 8am on Tuesday, just enough time for play to resume at noon. In the end, Fearnley managed to avoid the worst case scenario – immediately losing his service game upon the restart – but he never quite settled down. His superb run from qualifying, which included a first career top-20 win against Tomas Machac in just his second clay-court event, ended with a hard fought 6-4, 7-6 (3) defeat by Dimitrov: “I was pleased with the way I handled the situation. Maybe I played that game a little bit too much in my head, and didn’t really think about if I was actually capable of winning the second set,” he said.
Across the tournament grounds, nobody will forget the day the lights went out. Frances Tiafoe was waiting patiently for his match in the player restaurant. “We were thinking it’s gonna be like a 30-minute, hour thing,” he said. “[Tournament staff] were putting candles on our table and [it was] like: ‘Oh, now the whole of Spain is out of power.’ [I responded:] ‘OK, that’s cool.’ They put another candle on the table: ‘France is out of power too.’ ‘OK, that’s cool.’ Then: ‘Italy’s out of power.’ I’m like: ‘Well, stop putting candles on the table.’”
Since some players were not scheduled until much later, not everyone had yet made the trip to Madrid. Alex de Minaur took several leisurely walks during the day and opted not to travel to the tournament. Jack Draper, who reached the fourth round with a retirement win against Matteo Berrettini after taking the first set 7-6 (2), had also been out on a leisurely walk before his match, which was scheduled for the evening, when the power cut.
“I came back to the hotel [and] all of a sudden the lights were off and everything,” he said. “I had to walk up 15 flights of stairs. So I was cramping in the legs, going up there, and then I came down. Took an hour and a half to get here in the car, trained a little bit and went back. Had a sandwich for dinner. It wasn’t that bad, actually, to just take everything off my mind, no phone.”
As players attempted to leave the venue after play had been cancelled, the player restaurant and bar area was filled to the brim as players waited for a lift to their hotels, some of which were 15km away. Some opted to walk home, while others waited patiently. ew enjoyed a dinner typical of an athlete: “They still had bread here. So I had a lot of bread,” said Fearnley. Tiafoe, who defeated Alexandre Müller in straight sets, was slightly more blunt: “I ate complete bullshit,” he said. “Just a lot of chocolate.”
Most players in Madrid noted that they were simply happy to be in good health and there was no reason to stress: “Honestly, at this point, I just added to the list of random things that have happened that delay a tennis match,” said Madison Keys. “There’s nothing that you can do. So just I took a nap, I laid down, I used my phone while I still had service. Then it stopped working, and I was like: ‘OK, I’ll take another nap.’”
For Tiafoe, it is important to look at the glass half -full and to accept the circumstances without complaint. His experience on Monday, however, will also be a source of humour for years to come.
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“We’ve experienced a lot of things,” he said, smiling. “I’m going to be a grandfather on my rocking chair in many years time, saying: ‘I survived Covid and in Spain a country power outage while I was playing a tournament. You young kids have been through nothing.’”
