From the big television screen showing Nicolas Batum stretching, to former player Richard Dacoury performing “the three blows” or les trois coups, an age-old practice borrowed from French performance stages, the home fans never stopped.

There were cheers, and, of course, there were boos, even when the Canadians were merely running onto the court to warm up. Such hostility went up a notch at the team announcement, with the loudest boos of all reserved for none other than Dillon “the Villain” Brooks.

With the spectators calling the names of the entire French team alongside the announcer and singing France’s national anthem, La Marseillaise, together, the “playing field” was hardly fair, and one could probably tell from the stats sheet.

Despite three wins in as many group games, Canada scored only 10 points – their fewest in any of their 12 quarters played in Paris previously – in the opening quarter against France.

Nav Bhatia, the Toronto Raptors’ most famous fan, appeared to be sitting courtside as the camera caught his face once. But even the presence of the “Superfan”, who has been at almost every single Raptors home game since the team was founded in 1995, could not lift a largely outplayed Canadian squad.

Qualifying as the best Americas team at the Fiba Basketball World Cup last year, Canada never led in the game and would trail by as many as 19 points before going down 82-73.

The French had led for 39:43 out of 40 minutes.

Finding my way next to Roland Garros for a night of boxing was not enjoyable in any sense, for a couple of reasons.

One was watching fans arriving for the later game between the United States and Brazil knowing that I wouldn’t be in the stands with any of them. The other was arriving at Porte d’Auteuil station on metro Line 10.

All the gigantic pink, square instruction boards hanging all over the interchange pointed to the left of the platform for the exit to Roland Garros, but staff on the platform decided to send everyone coming off the train in the opposite direction.

There was no way back to the designated exit as Paris police officers cordoned off the roads, making only one direction, far away from Gate 30 intended for accredited media, available for all coming out from underground.

Volunteers stopped a handful of journalists to ask us to go back to where we came from, not knowing the situation around the metro station. After several rounds of communications, we were instructed to go through Gate 2 but those guarding the hospitality gate stood firm. No way through.

More debates back at Gate 1 did not work any magic initially and I, alongside journalists and television crews from China, Algeria and Thailand, were on the brink of being sent back again.

Never did I expect that arguing with the French, in English, would work in the end – but it did.