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

It’s hard to believe 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 over 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 on hand, including the Hawkeye system.

Equally bizarre was the announcement by the chair umpire himself, 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.