Cause for concern has been created within the tennis community after an intruder invaded the court during the French Open 2009 final match. In a match which saw Roger Federer go on to equal Pete Sampras’ record of 14 Grand Slam titles, one person nearly ruined the occasion by running over to Federer and throwing a towel at him.

The incident has created great concerns that security is not tight enough during tennis matches and there were flashbacks to 1993 when Monica Seles was attacked during a match. However, the intruder was promptly taken down and Federer quickly progressed to create calls of him being the greatest player to have ever picked up a racket.

The risk is that the intruder may well have been armed and Federer would have then been forced to defend himself. Although it didn’t that type of incident could have created an effect that drastically altered the Swiss man’s performance and handed the title over to Robin Soderling.

Federer said: “It has happened to me before at Wimbledon and in Montreal when I was playing Andy Roddick. Two guys came on court at Wimbledon once and one of them actually said, ‘I’m sorry I had to do this.’ I said to him, ‘That’s OK, just don’t touch me.”

“I didn’t know what this guy wanted today. It threw me for a couple of points and maybe, on reflection, I should have sat down and taken my time a bit more. I was very nervous at the start of the third set because I realised how close I was.”

The incident is likely to be noted by officials at Wimbledon, which starts at the end of the month. High calibre sport should not subject quality professionals to the idiocy of people who are deliberately trying to cause disruption in order to make a point.

Whoever was the head of security at the French Open can think themselves extremely lucky that nothing dangerous happened and that the match finished in style and grace as opposed to potential tragedy. A rethink of the security agenda is possibly needed but the point is that this sort of thing should not happen and should not even create the smallest hint of worry in the mind of the games’ greatest players.

The security around Wimbledon should be a lot tighter around the prominent courts. One fans who attended the French Open said on a newspaper website: “At no point during the fortnight did any security check my bag on entering the Roland Garros complex. Security definitely needs to be tightened up.”

Hopefully the intruder would have ironically created a beneficial effect in the respect that lessons can be learnt. Regular bag checks and tighter security around the courts should be the paramount of concerns for all officials associated with the sport. The next time a crazed individual runs onto the middle of a court in an important match one of the players may not be so lucky. Players should not have to think about coming away from a match with a potentially devastating injury.