Francisco Cerundolo’s second-round match against Jenson Brooksby at Queen’s was stopped in the second game on Wednesday after a localised power failure knocked out the electronic line-calling system. The interruption came while Cerundolo had already broken serve in the opening game and was leading 1-0, 40-15 when play suddenly went dead.
The pause mattered because ATP Tour matches at Queen’s use automated line-calling and there are no line judges on court to take over in the usual way. Clare Balding told viewers live that there was a power issue on court and in the commentary box, while James Keothavong asked the players to stop for a few minutes before the problem was confirmed. Denise Parnell then came to the court as Cerundolo and Brooksby waited at their benches.
For a few minutes, the match was suspended with the system that governs line calls no longer functioning, leaving the chair umpire as the only immediate fallback if the outage dragged on. Andrew Castle even suggested from the commentary box that it would come down to Keothavong to call the ball from the umpire’s chair. That did not end up being necessary. After a short interruption, play resumed and Cerundolo held to stretch the lead to 2-0.
The stoppage was one of several live disruptions in the Queen’s coverage on Wednesday. In a separate match, Arthur Fery paused proceedings after noticing a nosebleed while preparing to return Adrian Mannarino’s serve at 1-1 in the second set, then came back about five minutes later and went on to beat Mannarino 7-6 6-4 for his first ATP Tour quarter-final. Later, the cut an interview with Corentin Moutet after he swore seven times.
For Cerundolo, the interruption was brief, but it exposed how quickly a modern match can be forced back into old-fashioned uncertainty when the technology goes dark. The score moved on, the system came back, and the only unanswered point was how long the power problem had really lasted before everything was normal again.
