Liam Broady: French Open rowdiness even extends to nine-year-olds

During a lunchtime press briefing on Thursday, tournament director Amelie Mauresmo announced that fans would no longer be able to take alcoholic drinks to their seats, and would only be able to consume them in the concourses. 

Whether such rules can be reliably enforced is another question, however. One fan sitting in front of the media seats on Court Suzanne Lenglen on Thursday afternoon was holding a beer in each hand.

“The umpires are really going to be even more strict to [give] further respect to the players and respect the game,” Mauresmo said on Thursday. “This is something that we’re not going to tolerate, to overstep these two things. That’s for sure. So umpires have quite an important role in this matter.

“And definitely in terms of security, we’re going to try to see which people are maybe making [trouble ] because I think it’s a few individuals at some point that are overstepping.”

This is the second straight year that fan behaviour at Roland Garros has become a talking point among the players, although last year the complaints mainly related to booing and jeering rather than direct personal abuse.

For some reason, a player only has to speak to the umpire at the French Open to earn a chorus of boos (unless that player is French, of course). Occasionally, even a celebration can be enough to spark a negative reaction. Last year, Djokovic complained about a lack of respect after he was booed for punching the air during a tense third-round win over Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.

“There are people – there are groups or whatever – that love to boo every single thing you do,” Djokovic said then. “That’s something that I find disrespectful and I frankly don’t understand that.”