Wild scenes as Coco Gauff’s courtside interview gets hijacked by Madrid blackout
A tennis star got caught in a lift and Coco Gauff’s interview was cut short as Spain’s power outage caused havoc at the Madrid Open.
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Tennis star Fernando Romboli was trapped in an elevator and Coco Gauff had an interview cut short as a power outage wreaked havoc at the Madrid Open.
The electrical issue struck much of Spain and Portugal, with the former declaring a national emergency.
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Several tennis players were left stranded at Madrid’s Caja Magica venue as the concourse was plunged into darkness, as The Sun reports.
Romboli, 36, was affected worse than most, having entered a lift mere seconds before the power cut.
Watch Coco Gauff’s interview get cut below
The doubles world No. 62 is not in the draw this week and was only on site as an alternate, having missed the cut.
To add to his woes, the recent Houston champion went on to spend around half an hour stuck in the lift.
In a selfie taken in the elevator, Romboli raised his thumb and tagged the Madrid Open.
The luckless star wrote: “30 minutes stuck in the elevator … if there’s an alternate now I won’t make it in time.”
Eventually maintenance crew on site arrived to prise open the doors and free Romboli.
Reigning US Open champion Coco Gauff managed to squeeze in a 6-4 6-2 victory over Belinda Bencic just before the 12.30pm local time power outage.
Gauff, 21, was conducting her on court interview when the power cut out, with her mic failing mid-sentence.
The American later revealed that she could not even shower following her match and eventually had to walk back to her hotel due to the streets surrounding the Caja Magica being gridlocked.
British up-and-comer Jacob Fearnley also found himself in a precarious position as play was forced to be halted, about to serve to stay in his match against Grigor Dimitrov at 4-6 4-5.
All remaining play was later cancelled for the day, with fans urged to leave the venue if able.
Australia’s Alex de Minaur was among the players who had their matches pushed back a day due to the outage.
The indoor concourse, which had to be illuminated by phone lights, featured stalls selling food and drink although fans could only make cash purchases due to contactless machines not working.
Another player that did manage to finish their match was teenage phenom Mirra Andreeva.
The Russian was able to get her contest with Yuliia Starodubtseva finished despite the power cut, with the umpire calling the lines for the final stages.
Andreeva, who turns 18 this week, told the WTA after the match: “This is my first blackout. It’s actually kind of exciting because I’ve never experienced anything like this.
“I’m super happy that they put me first so I got to finish everything on time.
“But I don’t want to spend the night here and sleep in the gym, but we’re going to see what they tell us and just go from there.”
This article originally appeared in The Sun and was reproduced with permission
Originally published as Wild scenes as Coco Gauff’s courtside interview gets hijacked by Madrid blackout
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