A surreal situation at the Estoril ATP tournament: why the Darderi-Martinez match was suspended at the start of the second set

It’s incredible what happened in Cascais, Portugal, home of the Estoril Open, which returned to the main tour this year as an ATP 250 event after a year on the Challenger circuit. With Luciano Darderi cruising toward victory in the round of 16 against Pedro Martinez (the first set had in fact ended 6-0 in favor of the Italian), a sudden power outage forced the chair umpire to halt play, as it was impossible to use the electronic equipment, including the Hawkeye system.

Equally bizarre was the announcement by the same chair umpire, who had indicated 8:15 p.m. as the time for play to resume, alarming the audience present, having forgotten that Portugal is one hour behind Central European Time. Once power was restored, the warm-up began around 7:20 p.m. local time, which was 8:20 p.m. in Italy.

Darderi wasn’t too affected by the interruption; on the contrary, the player—currently ranked No. 21 in the ATP rankings—won the match decisively, 6-0, 6-1, conceding only a single game to his opponent in the final stages of the match. The Italian will face Portugal’s Jaime Faria in the quarterfinals, who defeated Gonzalo Bueno 6-2, 6-4.