Federer Furious At Feeble French Security

Roger Federer is reportedly furious after there were multiple breaches in security in today’s French Open opening rounds.

Federer was leaving the court following his straight sets thrashing of Alejandro Falla, when he was accosted by a court-invading man. Thankfully, the young man was only holding a phone and wanted a selfie with the (arguably) greatest player in the history of the game. Once the man had met Federer, he nonchalantly exited the court.

Of course, he was detained and banned from the rest of the tournament AFTER he had quite easily breached security protocol. He merely climbed onto court with no resistance to end up in the presence of Federer at the French Open.

Federer discussed the event with the press quite promptly.

“All of a sudden he was next to me, I didn’t know who he was. He tried to take a picture and nobody’s reacting, and I realize it’s just some guy out of the crowd. Obviously not one second am I happy about it, It happened yesterday in practice, too. Then it was just a kid but three more kids came. And today on centre court, where you would think is a place where nobody can come on, [he] just wanders on and nothing happens. It happened during the finals in ’09 as well for me. So I definitely think that something needs to happen quickly.”

Obviously this is completely unacceptable, especially considering the events at Charlie Hebdo are still fresh in many people’s minds, where 11 people were killed in the offices of the Paris-based magazine. One would expect that security at the French Open (one of France’s most highly-attended sporting events) would be much tighter considering the circumstances.

French Open organizer, Gilbert Ysern, was unsurprisingly nervous when he faced the press today but provided little to no answer to how they will combat this type of event.

“We made a mistake and it won’t happen again. There is no reason for us to change security procedures. It was just a lack of judgment”

Of course, pro-tennis on the whole isn’t necessarily squeaky clean when it comes to security and court invaders. Most tennis fans will remember the horrific scenes when Monica Seles (former world number 1 and French Open Winner) was stabbed by a court invader with a box cutter while on court in Hamburg, 1993. The incident forced her into a two-year retirement. Interestingly, Federer was actually talking to Seles recently in NYC.

[Photo Credit: Associated Press]