Madrid Open match completed during power outage as umpire steps in with play suspended

Matteo Arnaldi booked his spot in the round of 16 of the Madrid Open despite a mass power cut wreaking havoc on the tournament. at the Caja Magica on Monday. But over on one of the smaller outdoor courts, one match was able to be completed when the chair umpire stepped in and manually called all the lines and scores.

Players were taken off the courts when the power suddenly went out at the Masters 1000 tournament. The outage affected the electronic line-calling system and scoreboards. The lights also went out inside the venue, forcing fans to use their phone torches to navigate the grounds.

After against Novak Djokovic in the second round, world No. 44 Arnaldi hoped to back up his big win against Damir Dzumhur. Arnaldi led by a set and a break when the power went out, putting himself within touching distance of the last 16.

While other matches around the grounds were suspended, the Italian was allowed to finish the job against Dzumhur and he went on to win 6-3 6-4, going back to basics with chair umpire Mohamed Lahyani calling the lines and manually keeping track of the score.

The pair were playing on Court 4, one of the small courts not housed inside the Caja Magica - also known as the Magic Box - so the lack of lighting wasn't an issue, but the automated line calls were still not working.

According to the ATP rulebook, if the electronic line calling system malfunctions in any way, a tour supervisor has the power to resort to other measures.

These include suspending or postponing play, moving the match to another court, or allowing the match to continue with the chair umpire calling all of the lines.

After the power went out, Arnaldi and Dzumhur played five more games until the world No. 44 sealed a straight-set victory.

But it took a while for the final score to show up on official platforms, including the ATP app and website, as the umpire could not input the results on his tablet.

While Arnaldi is safely through to the fourth round, other players have been left waiting around. British No. 2 Jacob Fearnley was serving to stay in his match against Grigor Dimitrov on the main Manolo Santana Stadium court when the power outage hit.

No. 15 seed Dimitrov had already blown a match point on Fearnley's serve in an earlier game, then attempted to serve for it at 5-3 before getting broken.

Meanwhile, Coco Gauff had just beaten Belinda Bencic on the Arantxa Sanchez Stadium and was giving an on-court interview as the power cut happened.

The American later took to her Instagram story to share the effects of the outage inside the venue. Gauff posted a photo of a woman holding a tray of candles and filmed a video inside the locker room, which was pitch black except for one emergency light.

"There's literally no power. I'm literally in the locker room about to take a shower. All of this is just emergency light right here but over here there is no power where the showers are. I'm about to take a shower and I'll let you know how it goes," she said.