World No. 6 Jack Draper said he was “actually enjoying” the time to “focus on what is important.”
“I’m a bit of a minimalist,” he said. “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.”
Women’s second-ranked Iga Swiatek said she “just chilled and used that time to not think about what I should do.”
“There was no signal, so basically no one used their phones,” she said. “It was nice, I liked it.”
Swiatek said tournament organizers handled the situation adequately, helping players in a difficult situation.
“Honestly, who would have predicted that, you know? I’m sure no one,” she said.
World No. 4 Taylor Fritz jokingly offered some advice to solve the problem.
“Have they tried unplugging and plugging it back in?” the American player said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Don’t mind this off the grid thing,” Australian player Alex de Minaur, No. 7 in the world, wrote on X, along with a series of emojis. “On the 3rd walk (of) the day and finally got some service to check on the rest of the world.”
His fiancée, world No. 40 Katie Boulter, quickly responded: “Imagine blaming a country blackout for not texting me back all day. Elite behavior,” she wrote, also along with emojis.
