There is one thing that players from Ukraine and Russia seem to be able to agree on at Roland Garros: the crowds have been more hostile this year than ever before.
Russia’s Daria Kasatkina was knocked out on Sunday night and on Monday gave a parting shot after becoming the latest player to be booed off court, following her fourth round exit.
She had offended the Court Suzanne Lenglen by not taking part in the shaking hands ritual with her Ukrainian opponent Elina Svitolina. However, as explained by Kasatkina – a sympathetic figure – she only did it because she understands the position taken by players from the besieged country.
‘Leaving Paris with a very bitter feeling,’ she tweeted. ‘All this days, after every match I’ve played in Paris I always appreciate and thanked crowd for support and being there for the players. But yesterday I was booed for just being respectful on my opponent’s position not to shake hands. Leaving the court like that was the worst part of yesterday.’
Time and again it has happened this fortnight, at an event which began with another Ukrainian, Marta Kostyuk, booed and jeered in a similar incident.
Russia’s Daria Kasatkina was booed by the crowd despite giving a thumbs up to Elina Svitolina
Kasatkina took to Twitter post-game and said she was ‘leaving Paris with a very bitter feeling’
Everyone from Novak Djokovic, pictured, to Cameron Norrie have felt the derision of the crowd
‘People should be honestly embarrassed,’ she said. ‘ I want to see people react to it in ten years when the war is over. I think they will not feel really nice about what they did.’
This 2023 phenomenon has gone far beyond anything related to the Ukraine-Russia issue. Everyone from Novak Djokovic – used to being a polarising figure – to Britain’s relatively mild-mannered Cam Norrie has been subjected to derision.
At one point of his first round match against Benoit Paire the crowd was so whipped up that they broke into a rendition of La Marseillaise in the middle of a game.
As any long time visitor to Roland Garros knows, it is a very different animal to its British counterpart Wimbledon. The crowds are always more passionate and intense with, broadly, a greater knowledge of the game.
There is a history of turning on players who they disapprove of out in the 16th Arrondisement, but it has never been quite so vehement as this year. It is not on the same level as the vile personal abuse footballers suffer, but in a sport where you have to play for hours on end, alone, being booed and whistled at can still be debilitating.
The reasons for why this happening are multi-faceted, and not always related purely to the world of tennis.
Two of them are quite straightforward. The weather this year has been fantastic, creating by itself an ebullient atmosphere. Secondly, beer is more freely available with the installation of automatic beer dispensers newly introduced, and staff walking around with backpacks offering top-ups, almost as if you were at somewhere like the Cheltenham Festival.
In a country with a genuinely deep feeling for tennis there is also frustration at the failure to produce a genuine title contender. The many French also-rans have had strong support to try and urge them on which, as Norrie discovered, can turn into an ambiance of outright hostility.
One veteran French journalist also pointed to more abstract causes of why the character of the place seems to have altered.
The weather and greater availability of beer have contributed to a more intense atmosphere
Norrie faced hostility from the crowd when he faced France’s Benoit Paire in the first round
Taylor Fritz was booed by the crowd after eliminating France’s final hope in the men’s singles
Spectators have flocked to the highest capacity venues in throughout this year’s tournament
‘I think there is an element of people expressing themselves more and letting off some air after Covid,’ he said. He also pointed out to the sheer size of crowd numbers flocking into higher capacity stadiums, and coming in and out for the new separate night session.
There might also be another intangible this year: no Rafael Nadal and no Roger Federer. The two of them are regarded with reverence in France, and they have a following all of their own. It could be that that the purist element among tennis fans is slightly reduced this year, with a higher percentage of rowdier incomers not so transfixed by those coming through to replace them.
And there is a wider backdrop of public protests in the country, with the latest national strike due to take place on Tuesday.
Whether this kind of behaviour will spill over to Wimbledon will be interesting to see, probably not. Roland Garros is always likely to generate a more febrile atmosphere, but not to the extent seen this turbulent year.