At Madrid Open, players took blackout in stride and enjoyed time away from cellphones

MADRID (AP) — Many of the tennis players who endured the power outage that brought Spain and Portugal to a standstill and disrupted the Madrid Open tournament on Monday said they actually enjoyed some of their time off the grid.

A total of 22 matches had to be postponed because of the several-hours-long blackout that affected most of Spain and Portugal. Play resumed Tuesday with a packed scheduled and players talking about how they coped without power and cellphone connection.

Read More: Katie Boulter calls out Alex de Minaur's 'elite' red flag behavior for going off the grid during blackout

"It was fine," 10th-ranked Daniil Medvedev said. "I tried a couple of times in my life to use my phone less, but you can't because you have to do a bank transfer, you have your coach calling you, your wife, your kids. You are going to lose the connection. When I am not with my wife, she calls me so I can talk to the kids."

The power went off at about noon and was only restored late at night in most parts of Madrid. Players and fans were told to leave the Caja Magica tennis complex after organizers postponed all remaining matches for the day.

"It's not really possible, but once you don't have the opportunity (to use your phone), I loved it," Medvedev said. "We had a great sandwich dinner, because there was no hot food ... We were just enjoying and in the end, it was perfect timing. Around 10:30 p.m. the power was on, a small time on the phone, and then go to bed. It was perfect."

World No. 6 Jack Draper said he was "actually enjoying" the time to "focus on what is important."

"I'm a bit of a minimalist," he said. "Everyone was panicking, but it was so nice to actually have no phone and none of the other (stuff) going on in the world, and just try and focus on what is important. I ended up reading 10 pages of a book. Usually I don't read at all, so it was interesting."

Women's second-ranked Iga Swiatek said she "just chilled and used that time to not think about what I should do."

"There was no signal, so basically no one used their phones," she said. "It was nice, I liked it."

Swiatek said tournament organizers handled the situation adequately, helping players in a difficult situation.

"Honestly, who would have predicted that, you know? I'm sure no one," she said.

World No. 4 Taylor Fritz jokingly offered some advice to solve the problem.

"Have they tried unplugging and plugging it back in?" the American player said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

"Don't mind this off the grid thing," Australian player Alex de Minaur, No. 7 in the world, wrote on X, along with a series of emojis. "On the 3rd walk (of) the day and finally got some service to check on the rest of the world."

His fiancée, world No. 40 Katie Boulter, quickly responded: "Imagine blaming a country blackout for not texting me back all day. Elite behavior," she wrote, also along with emojis.

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By TALES AZZONI