Coming off court after an draining five-set, three-and-a-half-hour slog in the first-round of last year’s French Open, David Goffin had enough energy for one last attack.
‘It’s becoming like football, soon there will be smoke bombs, hooligans, and there will be fights in the stands,’ Goffin told the media. To the casual ear, it would be hard to believe the Belgian player was talking about a tennis match.
But Goffin had the misfortune to have been drawn against a Frenchman, big-serving 20-year-old prospect Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, and the double misfortune to have beaten him.
Doing so had come against the backdrop of a chorus of boos, jeers, and singing of the French national anthem. Even winning failed to silence the crowd, with Goffin even accusing one spectator of spitting their chewing gum at him as the curdled atmosphere spilled over onto the court.
At Roland-Garros however, this is no one-off event; instead, the tournament has earned the dubious distinction of being the rowdiest, and possibly most unpleasant stop on the tour.
Goffin dubbed the crowd ‘totally disrespectful’. Doubles star Arina Rodionova described them as ‘especially feral’. Even a French player, Alize Cornet, called out ‘a handful of idiots’ after she was booed for retiring through injury in 2022.
David Goffin was booed and reportedly spat at by a particularly hostile crowd in Paris in 2023
But the incident was hardly a one-off, with Roland-Garros host to one of the loudest crowds on the tour
Supporters in their thousands will flood through the gates over the next two weeks and the players must prepare themselves
It’s clear that over the next two weeks, no one is safe.
There are few players who are unaware of the reputation that the tournament’s fans bring with them. Former champion Mats Wilander, now a pundit for TNT Sport, put it most politely when he said in 2023 that the crowd was ‘a bit more involved here than if you play a Brit at Wimbledon, or an American at the US Open, or an Aussie at the Australian’.
Of the few certainties you can cling to in Paris, one is fervent home support. Woe betide a player drawn against a home favourite, and worse still if they’re anywhere close to winning the match.
Taylor Fritz represents the most extreme example of a player that has wrestled with partisan home support – and still carries the legacy of the fracas with him when he steps onto court in Paris today.
Drawn against Arthur Rinderknech, the American number one had the unpleasant fate of despatching the last Frenchman in the bracket, doing so under a hail of unprompted boos and whistles, and a round of ‘La Marseillaise’ to further rouse their compatriot.
Fritz had lost the first set but found his level – much higher than Rinderknech’s – thereafter, and on the last point, finally responded to his critics by placing his finger over his mouth in a ‘shush’ gesture.
That turned the volume to 11. Rather an hurrying off court, Fritz stood open-stanced in the centre of the court and yelled: ‘Come on! I want to hear it’.
The boos and jeers were so loud during his post-match on-court interview with Marion Bartoli, the former player kept on pausing to ensure she could be heard. But this was put to the test by her interviewee, who let off another round of ‘sshs’ even as the stadium announcer begged the crowd to quieten down.
Taylor Fritz made himself public enemy number one when he bit back against a French player
Sometimes, fans will sing the French national anthem in a bid to raise the spirits of their star
Novak Djokovic has long struggled with the judgmental and partisan crowd – despite having won the tournament three times
Daniil Medvedev also shushed the crowd during his turbulent match – but he didn’t go as far as lewd gestures as he did later that year
‘I came out and the crowd was so great, honestly,’ Fritz said, sarcastically and barely audibly. ‘Like, the crowd was just so great.
‘They cheered so well for me, I wanted to make sure that I won. Thanks, guys.’
Daniil Medvedev struggled similarly with the crowd that year and went as far as telling that to ‘shut up’ as he toiled against 172nd-ranked Thiago Seyboth Wild during an unusual testing five-set first-round upset.
The Russian star shushed the crowd as they provided a soundtrack to his conversation with the umpire over a wide ball mark, in an echo of his stand-off with fans at the 2019 US Open. Later on that year, Medvedev would raise his middle finger to the French crowd at the Paris Masters – but he managed to show admirable restraint in May.
Discussions with umpires, or any resistance to the natural rhythms of a match are often touch paper for fan revolt, with Novak Djokovic falling foul of this a number of times over the course of his career. Never the most coolheaded of players, the Serbian serial champion was heckled in 2023 after loudly criticising the court supervisor for the slipperiness of clay underfoot. That Djokovic was dusting himself off after taking an almighty tumble was irrelevant.
Djokovic was also called up a year later after he took understandable objection to being heckled by a supporter in the crowd. Once booed at a tournament, jeers can follow a player from match to match, with Djokovic admitting that it’s ‘never easy’ stepping out in the French capital.
Players will instead try and make overtures to the spectators during their media appearances. Coco Gauff has spoken often about how much she enjoys the crowd, and Cam Norrie has previously called upon French fans to ‘support him’ after he knocked out their countryman Lucas Pouille two years ago.
But while the crowd can often be found firmly on the side of the establishment, two instances in 2023 showed how the crowd are unafraid of setting their own standards they feel players must adhere to. Ukrainian player Marta Kostyuk and Russian-born Daria Kasatkina both fell victim to a hostile crowd after opting not to shake hands after their matches with Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka and Kostyuk’s compatriot Elina Svitolina respectively.
Daria Kasatkina made an agreed-upon friendly gesture at the net to her Ukrainian opponent but still felt the French fire
Marta Kostyuk left Aryna Sabalenka seemingly waiting at the net after their 2023 clash
But the Ukrainian player was frustrated with the crowd’s response, dubbing it ’embarrassing’
Ukrainian stars had been refusing to shake hands with their Russian and Belarusian peers since the start of Russian aggression in their country in February 2022. Most players, like Kasatkina, who has been vocal about her support for Ukraine and peace in the region, have respected this and not sought the customary handshake. But in both instances, the crowd cared not a jot for the gesture, directing their ire at the players after assuming they had instigated the frosty end to the match.
Kasatkina voiced her distress that the crowd had not recognised her gesture on social media, saying that she had left the tournament with a ‘very bitter feeling’. Kostyuk gave a highly charged press conference after her match insisting that those who booed should be ‘honestly embarrassed’.
But there is unlikely to be any shame felt by a crowd committed to controlling the tempo of the atmosphere. That many of these incidents have taken place in recent years is likely no coincidence, with Mail Sport reporting in 2023 that post-Covid there seemed to be greater societal freedom for fans to express their opinions, not matter how how ugly or distracting for the players they can be. It still lingers.
Instead of expecting the supporters to calm down, the French Open organisers banned alcohol in the stands in 2024, extending it through this year in a bid to limit bad behaviour.
Whether it will spark a shift in the perception of French Open fans long-term remains to be seen. For now, the boos continue to ring round the grounds.
