'Just a disgrace': French Open fans fume over Rafa Nadal ticket farce

French Open fans are once again up in arms, and Rafael Nadal is still at the centre of the drama.

Fans were already fuming that the 11-time champion had been shunted off centre court for his second round clash with Yannick Maden on Wednesday.

And they were even less impressed when they tuned in to watch the match on TV and saw a number of empty seats smattered around Court Suzanne Lenglen.

Fans flocked to social media, gobsmacked that they hadn’t been able to get tickets to watch Nadal play, yet there were plenty of vacant seats to be seen.

“It’s just a disgrace that tickets for #RG19 are scarce and yet there are glaring empty seats at a Nadal match,” one fan wrote.

“I don't know if it's a failure of the ticketing system which I think is in dire need of reform or there's something else in play.”

The general consensus seemed to be that the seats were indeed sold, but their owners were off having lunch.

“Just to clarify, all these seats are sold, it is just that people don't bother to turn up until after they've had lunch,” they wrote.

“Lots of corporate hospitality tickets, with guests off drinking and eating.”

Nadal and Federer on fire

Nadal and Federer were given a workout by German qualifiers, but both safely advanced in straight sets to the third round.

The pair were joined by Greek sixth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas, Japanese seventh seed Kei Nishikori and Stan Wawrinka, but Australian hopes Alex de Minaur and Alexei Popyrin were both dumped out on Wednesday.

The 114th-ranked Yannick Maden broke the 11-time champion Nadal twice in a fiercely contested third set before eventually succumbing 6-1 6-2 6-4 in two hours and nine minutes.

"It was a good match for the first two sets. Not unbelievable, but with positive feelings. Then in the third I think I lost a little bit of concentration and intensity. And then the match became difficult. That's all," Nadal said.

"That's just about concentration, my feeling, because the feeling on the match had been positive. Positive thing is every time that I had the mistake, then I had the break again, and that's the good news."

Nadal's victory raised his astonishing Roland Garros record to 88-2 and set up a third-round date with Belgian 27th seed David Goffin, a 6-2 6-4 6-3 winner over Serbia's Miomir Kecmanovic.

Shortly afterwards German lucky loser Oscar Otte refused to be intimidated by the packed 15,000-seat centre court or Federer's aura, with the world No.114 impressing with huge groundstrokes and big serves before losing 6-4 6-3 6-4.

The Swiss great, back at the tournament for the first time since 2015, broke once in the deciding stage of each set to progress into the last 32 against Norway's Casper Ruud.

"I didn't know his game at all. It was very complicated. I am very relieved," Federer said in an on-court interview.

Big seeds survive

Meanwhile, Tsitsipas beat Bolivian Hugo Dellien 4-6 6-0 6-3 7-5 to become the first Greek man to reach the French Open third round since 1967.

The sixth seed, tipped as the youngster most likely to have a title run this year, said the surface of the Court Simonne Mathieu felt slow, forcing him to engage in long rallies with a player well grooved in the art of grinding it out on the dirt.

Japanese seventh seed Kei Nishikori shook off a slow start to topple local favourite Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 4-6 6-4 6-4 6-4, while 2015 champion Stan Wawrinka recorded an impressive 6-1 6-4 6-0 win over Chile's Cristian Garcin.

Australian teenager Popyrin bowed out 6-4 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 to Serb Laslo Djere, while de Minaur was beaten 6-3 6-1 6-1 by Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta.

Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov came from a set behind to outlast 11th seed Marin Cilic 6-7 (7-3) 6-4 4-6 7-6 (7-2) 6-3 in their heavyweight clash.

with AAP