By Manu Fernandez and Andrew Dampf
Former U.S. Open champion Coco Gauff was preparing to shower in a dark locker room after play at the Madrid Open tennis tournament was suspended and then postponed Monday due to a major power outage in Spain and Portugal.
Then Gauff realized that the water was off, too.
“So I just had to take baby wipes and wipe myself,” Gauff said, “and spray some perfume and call it a day.”
Gauff managed to beat Belinda Bencic 6-4, 6-2 shortly before the outage began. Then the 2023 U.S. Open champion posted an Instagram story showing only an emergency light working in an otherwise dark locker room.
The ATP Tour said that two singles matches and one doubles match were underway when power went out at 12:34 p.m. local time (1034 GMT).
“The cut is preventing the use of electronic line calling systems and also left a spider cam dangling over the court inside Manolo Santana Stadium,”
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