As the first day of Roland Garros drew to a close, the main talking point of the day did not involve a match. In fact it happened just after the match involving Roger Federer and Alejandro Falla and brings up the question: should security be tighter at Roland Garros?
What happened today? A teenaged boy managed to get past security and directly onto the court and tried to take a selfie with Roger as he was getting ready to leave the court after his victory. It took a good couple of minutes for anyone to get near to the fan and get him away from Federer. He was finally escorted away, his selfie deleted from his phone and he has been banned for the remainder of the tournament. How he managed to evade security and get onto the court must be a cause for concern. It is not the first incident of this kind at Roland Garros either, in fact there have been several, some of which have been more scary than others.
In 2009 during the match with Federer and Soderling, when Federer was 6-1, 2-1 up a fan jumped over the barrier and onto the court, went up to him and appeared to try and grab his head. The fan said he was just trying to put a red cap onto the head of the player he was supporting, but how did he even get that close? In 2013 there was a protester who again got onto the court, this time holding a flare. Although it was never confirmed as to what the protest was about, it was thought to be to do with the anti-gay marriage movement in France at the time. Although the protester was quickly apprehended and escorted from the stadium, how did he get so close?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u3SoXGFs5s
None of these incidents have caused any serious harm, unlike the incident that involved Monica Seles back in 1993. She was playing in Hamburg, Germany in the quarter-final match, when an obsessed fan of Steffi Graf (whom Seles had defeated for the third time in the Australian Open earlier in the year) jumped from the middle of the crowd and stabbed Seles with a boning knife between the shoulder blades.
Although this incident appears to have been a one-off, and security has certainly tightened following this, it is still a mystery why these events are continually allowed to happen. Wimbledon seems to have had incidents with streakers on centre court, with the last one being in 2006. The US Open had a fight in the crowd in 2010 and the Australian Open this year had protestors unfurl banners and try to get to the court. They were quickly removed from the arena with minimal disruption to play, but it seems that Roland Garros has been the tournament with the most incidents of the Grand Slam arenas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-8hpnA3lZY
After the fan selfie invasion today, it seems that the security guards have been reminded that no-one is to be allowed on court for any reason, unless they are supposed to be there. Nevertheless, it should not be happening and it is very worrying that is has happened again. Security needs to be tighter at Roland Garros to prevent these incidents occurring. It may be inconvenient for the fans, but no-one should be able to get near to the players, or their families. The fact they can is worrying as someone with an ulterior motive could easily get on court or to the players’ boxes. It’s also worth keeping mind that France recently suffered a horrendous terror attack targeting the offices of the newspaper Charlie Hebido.
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