I was surprised the way Fer'dasco lost his cool. The commentator said that was the first time he'd seen him act like that. He was raising both arms when Gasquet was serving especially after his double fault trying to get the crowd more agitated. The crowd got on him for that. The commentator also said never pick a fight with a French crowd. In any case, a much needed win for Gasquet. Good for him.
I don't really blame the crowd. They were supporting their homie. If you compare their behavior to other sports, it's not a big deal. There's a lot of heckling from NBA fans. I won't even mention soccer hooligans (which I never watch).

I saw that match and I can see why Verdasco got so upset during the 3rd set. He was up 4-1 and then Gasquet acted like he really messed up his knee and took a looong injury time out. He was wincing in pain and said things like I don't know if I can still play blah blah but then he came back to play. The funny thing was that he moved better than when he did before the supposed injury. It was obvious that he had faked the injury in order to recuperate mentally and hopefully messup Verdasco's rhythm. I play tennis too and a fierce competitor of mine does that also where he fakes injuries to mess me up. Gasquet is a sneaky little @#$%* who has to resort to such shady tactics to win because he sucks.

the french crowds are disgusting.

i think the french open might need to be moved away from france.

i think the french are racists.

french obviously hate spaniards.

more reason to dislike the french.

5 mil. muslims live in france; there is no way french are racists; they don't like immigrants take their jobs tho.

just saw the highlights of the nando-gasquet match

richard will create a lot of problems for mr murray.....

nd just saw the way verdasco behaved....its unlike him...to get goaded...react that way...

i hope he calms down...the french are very vocal...nd they hate spaniards...not wise to take them on...

u know why france hates spain so much in sports?

because spain dominates every sport that france cant dominate.
france just suck at sports, whereas spain is great at tennis,basketball,football,formula 1,motogp,hockey,golf,cycling,middle distance running, etc.

france suck at everything, so they are so jealous they resort to hating spaniards.
french sports is about flair but they are very inconsistent so they hardly ever win anything, whereas spainsh sports is about fight and they are very consistent, and in pro sports at the highest level, fight will win over flair anyday.

that is why nadal is not very popular in france because of his style of play whereas federer has a french loving style of game.
the frenchies thus love federer(also because he speaks french) and hate nadal.

i love a fighter than a player with flair.
u look at french players like tsonga,gasquet,monfils, etc are all flair but spaniards are massive fighters like rafa,ferrer,verdasco,lopez,robredo,almagro,etc...

one thing, though...although I tend to agree with most of the comments on the French crowd...Rafa stood in Gasquet's defense when all this mess happened regarding Richard's possible drug abuse...and Rafa and Gasquet are friends...so, that is mainly why I happen to like Gasquet because I think he is an honest person...I did not see the match but I am not at all surprised Nando showed some temper...after all, I do not think he expected this tournament to turn out difficult and time consuming for him...he played some three setters and it took a tool on him...he should recuperate for FO and stay calm...the crowd will irritate all French opponents...they will just have to live with that...

Gasquet was not that good on the day. Verdasco gave away the match on platter. All Spanish players do not get irritated by the French Crowd, at least not on show, and French crowd too do not target any particular nationality. Federer overcomes all pressures with his game and concentration. Best way to silence the crowd than how Verdasco tried to do in Nice.

@atr,
though i mention you, i say it for all to read..
france is a football world cup champ, spain is not..
france is a 9 time davis cup champ, spain 4 times..
french drivers have won more f1 championships than spanish drivers
some other sports you mentioned, spain has not done well..
france have won more olympic medals than spain..
look, i'm a huge spanish sports fan..
but really, french also have a great sporting legacy..
so, to say, french are poor in sports, that is bad..

I watched the match and Verdasco just lost it. His father was telling him to be quiet - I really thought he was just mentally and physically exhausted. i heard somewhere that somebody in the crowd started to heckle verdasco first and he reacted thereafter. Gasquet complained to the umpire quite a few times too. The umpire didn't do anything about it. Pretty shocking. It's not like verdasco so he's obviously been pushed to the limit. Not sure how far he'll make it at RG. I think he'll be out in the first round or two.

spain are 2 time euro champs.
spain dominates champion league.
alonso will win more F1 titles and overtake alain prost.
spain has more majors in golf.
spain has more majors in tennis in open era(when proper tennis started).
spain has more davis cups in tennis in open era.
spain has more fed cups in tennis.
spain won many titles in motogp.
spain won many tour de france.

spain wasnt really a sports power long ago like france. so france has an overall lead by a bit, but spain is way better than france now at many different sports.

hope nadal can slaughter every french mug that he plays at roland garros.
humiliate them rafa.

after this incident with verdasco and gasquet im sure the word has spread to paris and spainsh players will get booed evev more.

i hear nadal got booed yesterday after practice because he couldnt sign all the autographs at court susen lenglen.

i have a feeling this french open will be a nasty and bitter and hate filled tournament this year.
spain vs france is going to be intense.

and to make it even better they both face off in the davis cup later in the year IN FRANCE!

come on nadal, beat gianni mina 6-0 6-0 6-0 and make those frenchies cry.

nadal is the best person to shut these french crowds up with a dominant performance.

well, if you believe open era is proper tennis, i can't help it..
but the legacy of four muskeeters is not a small thing..
speaking of current performances, spain is obviously ahead..
but overall, france has been the better sporting nation..
just look at olympic standings man..

I think the french hate Spaniards coz they have recently overtaken them in almost all sports in which the French were better at eariler.

Nevertheless, these French crowd is disgusting, they are hooligans (worse than English soccer hooligans)

All Spaniards includng rafa will have to keep thier cool and ignore the crowd. Rafa especially will be targeted again right form his first match. However, I expect him to play against his opponents and the crowd (if need be) and bring back the clay crown to Spain.

Vamos!!

clayking...france 'HAS BEEN' but spain "IS" the better sporting nation...and much much better at tennis..

well, vrael, i meant look at the standings of olympics 2008..
france is quite ahead..
the thing is spain is ahead of france in the 4 major sports..

Well,i have been to france twice. Everything is good there,the cuisine,weather,culture etc. However the main negative is that the people,especially the ones in the city,are amongst the rudest people i have laid my eyes upon int he world. The french dont really like the spanish-this is a fact.

French don't like Spanish. French don't like to speak English language. What are their other likes and dislikes. I wish they do not dislike Rafa this year.

the crowd was dreadful, Verdsaco was bratty and Gasquet's injury time out was more than a bit suspect. Other than that, things went smoothly. :D

I have spent some time in France (french retreats, can recommend that to anyone here).

I agree with tj to a point. The further you go into the city, (paris), the worse the people become. Nice is about a 2 hour plane journey from Paris, (around 400 miles). My experience has been that if you stay around the provincial parts, the people are lovely, welcoming, warm and the countryside, food, culture is great. Even though Nice is very beautiful in parts, the people can be "rude" and "unwelcoming". But Paris is even worse, it's expensive, people do not say hello/goodbye, they are short in conversation and I have found them to be the opposite of some of the french people in the provincial areas - but then this is what could be said about any place/country?

You would think that they would be proud to have the tennis tournaments in their back yard (if you like), and want to take more care of this, so i don't know why they boo opponents.? May be it goes back to the Spanish Armada? or the historical battles between France and Spain - would have thought that by now, it would be water under the bridge? Hopefully things will calm down a bit for FO, but I wouldn't say so, based on this. :)

@clayking

france had 7 gold medals in 2008 olympics vs 5 golds for spain.
not a big difference at all.
and no one counts total medals, its an irrelevant ranking method no one in the world uses apart from north americans, the IOC ranks it by golds as do the rest of the planet and that is the way it has been and always will be ranked whether u or anyone else likes it or not.
china won the 2008 olympics, they got 51 golds and america came a distant second with 36 gold.
thats how the world will remember the winners of the 2008 olympics.

and the reason france has the overall lead over spain is because france was a sports power as was britain back in the days when about 5 countries used to take sports seriously.
but since sports became global and importantly became PROFESSIONAL, spain is clearly superior to france.
the depth these days in sports is far greater than it was few decades ago.
france and britain are not good enough in the pro sports era.
its like saying russia is a better sports nation than china because russia has the overall better records since they were a power long time ago and china hardly ever competed, but china is way way way better than russia at so many sports now.
china has overtaken russia at sports.
same with spain vs france, spain has overtaken france in sports.
u will get the odd french victory over spain, say 3 in ever 10 attempts in the major sports.

spain is still developing its olympic sports talent, u can see that with guys like rafael munoz. spain really took olympics seriously with big money spending and talent recruiting after the 1992 barcelona olympic games.

the french are jealous that they used to be a sports power back in the day when sports was in the amateur era along with britain but since sports went professional, france and britain suck now.

new sporting powers are on the rise, spain, australia and china are the biggest improvers over the last few decades.

the french think they own tennis, thats why its a bitter pill to swallow when they see their people cant win and spainish players doing well.
and spain has won alot of the french events like roland garros, tour de france, motogp, etc over the last few years.

when they cant beat them, they resort to hatred of the spaniards, since thats the easiest thing to do.

@atr
i agree with you. I think the main reason the French crowd support Federer is bcoz none of the French are good enough to win slams,and since Federer can speak french,they treat him like on of their own. And I agree with you that the depth of mens sports has become greater,and more global. Which is why I rate any sporting achievement these days as greater than the same achievement back in the past where sports werent global. (this includes tennis achievements) I agree that the French are worse than the spaniards in sports these days. Also,you are australian?Which state are you from?

trust me, the french will give hell to every spanish player in roland garros.
verdasco will get alot of booing and jeers and cheering of unforced errors.

and i suspect nadal will get the most jeers and boos, since he is the favourtie and he is the threat to federer. since france loves federer, anytime nadal gets into a close battle, they french will definitely support the other guy.
they want nadal out of the tournament ASAP.
then that will make things much easier for federer to win.
thats the theory behind all this.
it was the same last year, when the crowd got a sniff that nadal might lose, they started supporting soderling even more and then started jeering nadal.
remember when nadal fell, that got one of the biggest cheers in the entire match.

i remember when paul henri mathieu played federer last year at the french open a couple of days after nadal got eliminated, the crowd was supporting federer way more than they were supporting their own frenchman, because they wanted federer to win last year because they knew it was his chance.

the french crowd has to be the worst crowd in world sports.
there are bad crowds and then there is the french crowd.

and remember uncle toni ripped the paris crowd after nadal lost last year that he was disappointed after all the good behaviour of rafa over the years with signing autographs and doing promo events at roland garros, he never got any support in the important moments against soderling.
and toni said the there is only one crowd that is worse than the french crowd, and that is the paris crowd.
and that french cannot stand spanish people doing well.
u can even find the link, he said it to spanish radio.

i expect the crowd to turn against nadal the second a match starts getting tight and close, this is why nadal must make sure he takes the crowd out of the equation and dominate from the word go.

the courts are playing quicker this year more than last year, the ball is flying through the air and there is hardly any clay on the courts, its bare, thus the ball is zipping off the court.
its faster than rome.

its a miracle...i find myself agreeing with atr...with almost everything..lol!

@tj600

im in sydney.

@atr
im in the opposite end of the country-perth

@atr
do u agree with my theory about why the french crowd support federer more than their own? becoz all the french tennis players suc* and cant win slams,so they support the french-speaking federer. I disagree about fed playing tennis that pleases the french. He does play with flair,but is far more consistent than any of the french tennsi players.

I was piqued by Toni's comments last year. But there were no comments in the four years Rafa won.

If the courts are playing even quicker than last year, then good for Rafa that he doesnt have any ball bashers in his half of the draw. Fed will not win against him no matter how fast the court plays

@tj600

yes i agree, the french will choose a player that comes close to a french player.
federer speaks french, u french ppl believe he is as close to them as u can get, u they support him.
also the traditional tennis purists are hardcore federer fans and very anti nadal because nadal plays a new athletic style of play with alot of fight, whereas federer plays the text book 'beautiful' looking shotmaking strokes with the one hand backhand, his forehand and all that.
nadal is a baseliner that is about speed, fight, topspin, courage,never give up attitude, endurance and all that.

not only that but french people and tennis purists in general are extremely elitist and they want the traditional tennis powers to win and players with textbook style game to win.
federer is the ultimate player to fit those categories, his main fanbase is tennis purists and most are elitists.
federer himself comes across as very elitist.
whereas nadal is more of the simple down to earth guy that is genuinely humble and is more representative of the common man.
there is no elitist about nadal.
i think that is why federer and nadal are very polarizing.




@atul

the thing is even if the courts are fast, but the ball bounces high, thats suits nadal.
if the ball dont bounce high, and is in the hitting zone of big hitters, thats when nadal gets in trouble as the ball bounces into the hitting zone and on fast courts, nadal defence is not as effective.

that is why nadal says he likes when the weather is sunny and very hot because that means the ball bounces high out of the hitting zone of players and nadal can get control of the rallies and start to dominate.
in the soderling match last year, the weather was cloudy and there was sun only in patches for a few minutes so the courts were not hot and bouncy.
this made the ball sit right up into soderlings hitting zone and he just wacked forehand after forehand as nadal was dropping it short as he couldnt deal with soderlings heavy ball and nadal was constantly in a defensive position.
nadal refused to fight attack with attack, fire with fire, instead he relied on his defence to overcome soderlings attack and hoped soderlings level would drop off just enough for him to take advantage of, but that never happened, soderlings level dropped for only a couple of games, but nadal was not playing well enough to take advantage of that and hold onto that advantage.
nadal broke early in that 4th set and he gave that break back the very next game.
nadal relied on his tried and tested and be patient, but that didnt work on that occcasion.
it was not a good effort since he refused to change his game even when it looked his original game plan wasnt working.
he refused to change his game even deep into that 4th set.

its the worst clay match ive ever seen nadal play, in terms of tactics and his level of play.
he just didnt look in any of those rallies, usually even when he is in a defensive position it looks like he still has control of the point because of his incredible defence and his ability to hit passing shots from anywhere, but not on that day.

he was injured last year but the courts didnt suit his game and neither did the opponent, so he cannot just say he lost last year because of the injury and not because of anything else.
there was a combination of factors involved in that loss, one of them was the injury but not the only reason.

he will need to be aggressive like he is at wimbledon to win the title.
this is not the roland garros of old.
its completely new.

also there was a new president of the french tennis federation from last year and i believe it was his idea to change the court and the balls, apparently he used to be a former rugby player.
its his cunning plan to dismantle nadal.

Sounds like it was a pretty mean-spirited crowd, unfortunately. Root for your guy by all means but why boo the opponent? I don't understand that mentality. The thing is though, I also don't understand why Verdasco lost his cool like that. He seemed to really go over the edge and frankly there wasn't THAT much at stake. He let the crowd and Gasquet get to him and he came off worse for wear. Not good for him.

No need to worry about the booing. Rafa and co play in Davis Cup ties, many of which in countries other than Spain. Booing is normal, it will spur them on to beat the players from the home nation, just like what the Italian did to Gulbis at Rome, when Gulbis beats Volandri.

The French will not support Fed when he plays against Monfils/Tsonga,
as Fed had already gotten his FO, they'll want their own player to get one too. Rafa will be well prepared for the booing this time round and I'm sure he couldn't be bothered by it. I hope the Rafa fans present would shout out their support for him louder then the booing, and irritate the he'll out of the French/Parisian crowd.

hahah lol. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-tZVF1ElwM&feature=player_embedded

Ha ha tj600, nice to see 'le jukebox' back again!

soderling looked like he had fun in the jukebox..;)