Nadal is a scapegoat?

[Custom+Hybrid]

Rafael Nadal has met considerable hostility from the Parisian public during his performances at Roland Garros. He is often booed throughout and even after the match, especially when playing against and beating French players such as Mathieu or Gasquet. Commentators on French TV, such as Guy Forget on France 2, openly say they want him to lose during matches, claiming that "we don't need construction worker arms in tennis". After the 2006 Roland Garros final against Federer, Nadal started by praising Federer in his speech. The translator mistranslated the speech, leading the public to think he was praising himself. Nadal was thus booed and whistled at throughout the speech.
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Is this all true?

 

[superman1]

I don't know about French commentators saying they want him to lose, but the rest is all true. The French crowds are tough to please.

 

[Custom+Hybrid]

So the translators took his praise of Federer and made it sound like he was bragging about his own performance?

 

[Rataplan]

I saw that speech on French tv. They had a translator on tv + the translator on the court.
The tv translator gave quite an accurate translation of what Rafael Nadal was saying (praising Federer,...) at the same time of the speech (you could hear Rafael's voice + the voice of the tv translator at the same time). Once Nadal + the tv translator were done speaking, we were waiting for the on court translator to tell the crowd what Rafael was saying but he just translated a fraction of it and left out the praise for Federer.

It's my opinion that the crowd felt that the translator was leaving out a lot of things because Rafael was talking for quite a bit and the on court translation was simply too short to capture all that. So, in my viewpoint, they were whistling at the translator because they wanted to hear the whole speech.

About Guy Forget, I can't tell. I didn't watch the match itself on French tv.
I think that it's very possible that they wanted Federer to win the match (making history in France with the Roger slam thing) but Forget has given a lot of praise about Rafael Nadal in the past so unless he was lying then, I don't think he wanted Nadal to lose but he just was supporting Federer more.
But, this is just my interpretation.
Did anybody watch the most recent Davis Cup matches with France? Gasquet was playing against Tursunov and things weren't going well for Richard and when Richard showed signs of giving up, Forget was trying to motivate him by telling Richard that he wanted to see a Rafael Nadal attitude, a "fight for every point" attitude, a "never say die" attitude.
Forget has given enough praise towards Rafael Nadal in the past for me to doubt that he actually said that he was hoping that Nadal would lose but like I said, I didn't see the match on French tv.

About the arm thing: my guess is that Forget said that you don't need arms like that to play wonderful tennis. Young kids shouldn't rush to their local gym to try and get massive biceps. I don't think it was meant as an insult to Rafael Nadal.

However, there's an odd rivalry between France and Spain. Today, their soccer teams are playing against each other in the wordl cup and they were talking about that rivalry in the press here.

 

[superman1]

Nah, the crowds were booing Nadal because they thought he said that he was the greatest of all time. He really said Federer was the greatest ever. I don't speak French, but Federer does and he raised his eyebrows when Nadal said that. Pretty funny, but I feel bad for Nadal. He really doesn't get enough credit for his personality. People just see a mindless muscle machine.

 

[Luca]

Well, the true is that there has always been a kind of "rivalry" between France and Spain, not only in sports, but in general things, policy..so i suposse french people dont´t like to see so many spanish players these last years winning Roland Garros. Apart of this, Nadal won FO last year, so i think people in general (not only the french) wanted Fed to get his fourth GS.
And about Nadal, as I´m spanish and I´ve watched many Spanish and English interviews, I´ve to say that there´s no comparation between them.The English interviews can be funny, because of his english, but he says nothing interesting in them, and some people can think he´s a bit "dumb" or something. The Spanish ones are much better, he shows a lot of maturity and humility, you can see that he is very easy-going, and you also realize that he really likes Federer, and considers him the best player ever and he wants no discussion about this.

 

[Rataplan]

Rafael Nadal is quite popular in France, though.
On French tv, they said that he was the most sought after by kids (autograph hunters) + L'Equipe they wrote that he received the most letters from all the players.

french crowd want ot see federer win on clay as he is a great guy and has a great personality.

Naaah...too simplistic as an explanation (may be part of it but that's not it IMO)
It's just that the French get sick and tired of the Spaniards stealing their thunder, esp. since it's been a long time since one of their own could win it (Noah). Federer winning it would be the first non-Spanish speaking in quite a long time + they loved the idea that Federer would achieve his Roger Slam in Paris.

 

[tnig469]

French crowds have always been subjective on many subjects throughout history...no big surprise...i truly dislike having french crowds boo anyone...they were destroying james blake when he was playin monfils...its not right...but what are we to do about it?...absolutely nothing......