Off the grid… but no excuses! Boulter teases De Minaur after power outage

Alex de Minaur posted an update on social media when phone signal returned after Monday’s extended power outage across Spain. Perhaps he should have written to Katie Boulter first instead...

The Australian No. 7 in the PIF ATP Rankings received a jokey comeback from his fiancée and Hologic WTA Tour star Boulter after he posted on X following the widespread disruption caused by the power outage.

“Don’t mind this off the grid thing,” wrote De Minaur, whose third-round match at the Mutua Madrid Open was delayed until Tuesday as a result of the disruption. “On the 3rd walk [of] the day and finally got some service to check on the rest of the world."

Boulter was having none of it, however, and the British World No. 40 delivered a quickfire witty response: “Imagine blaming a country blackout for not texting me back all day. Elite [red flag] behaviour.”

Imagine blaming a country blackout for not texting me back all day. Elite 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩behaviour

— Katie Boulter (@katiecboulter) April 28, 2025

Fixing the power cut proved a difficult task for the authorities in Spain, who finally succeeded in restoring normality to much of the country late on Monday night. It is unlikely they took the advice of No. 4 in the PIF ATP Rankings, Taylor Fritz, to get there.

“Have they tried unplugging and plugging it back in?” Fritz wrote on X six hours into the power outage.

Have they tried unplugging and plugging it back in ?

— Taylor Fritz (@Taylor_Fritz97) April 28, 2025

After Monday’s play in Madrid was cancelled due to the extraordinary circumstances in Spain, action at the clay-court event resumed on Tuesday, when Jack Draper advanced to the fourth round after Matteo Berrettini retired from the pair’s third-round match. The Briton was then asked how he had coped with a day ‘off the grid’.

“I was actually enjoying it,” said the World No. 6. “I’m a bit of a minimalist. 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.”

Like Draper, Daniil Medvedev also enjoyed being somewhat cut off from the outside world for a half a day.

“It was fine,” reflected Medvedev on the hours without power. “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.

“It’s not really possible, but once you don’t have the opportunity [to use your phone], I loved it. We had a great sandwich dinner, because there was no hot food. We were with Karen [Khachanov], Igor Andreev, my coach and my wife. 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.”