Power outage chaos at Madrid Open: How the blackout affected matches of Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek

Tennis star Coco Gauff seems advantageous in the ongoing Mutua Madrid Open 2025 tournament. The American stalwart sighed in relief as the surprising power outage took place in Spain just after she defeated her opponent Belinda Bencic in the pre-quarterfinals and advanced to the last eight rounds of the first WTA 1000 clay court tournament.

However, her rivals, world number one Aryna Sabalenka and world number two Iga Swiatek, found themselves in a daunting situation as their play was halted and later suspended. This massive outrage erupted in a major part of the nation on April 28th due to atmospheric phenomena.

This issue was extreme, as it had affected the metro services and traffic lights, and later the tournament also got suspended. In addition, the electronic items were also halted amid Coco Gauff's interviews. The tournament organisers later cancelled the rest of the matches to give priority to the safety of the players.

“Protocols have been activated to restore the electricity supply in collaboration with companies in the sector after the outage that occurred in the Iberian peninsula’s system. The causes are being analysed, and every resource is being dedicated to solving the issue. We will continue to report on the situation," the statement reads.

How can this incident affect Sabalenka and Swiatek's performance?

There was only one interview interruption in Gauff's match as she stormed into the quarterfinals of the prestigious event. However, Sabalenka and Swiatek had to wait amid the suspension of the match. This seems very brutal for these two, as the scheduling could be the major factor, with fewer breaks between the matches.

"Apparently the power is out in most of the country and in Portugal I finished my match right before it happened. Thank god," Coco Gauff wrote on her IG story.

"Traffic lights don't work lol. We got out of the car after 1 hour and 45 minutes of slowly moving and just walked to the hotel," she added.

Meanwhile, Iga Swiatek was set to face Diana Shnaider in the pre-quarterfinals, while top WTA star Aryna Sabalenka will be facing Peyton Stearns.