Before this year, the tournament was won by a home favorite on several occasions: Guy Forget in 1996, Fabrice Santoro in 1999, Arnaud Clément in 2006, and Gilles Simon in 2007. The record for most titles is three, won by the Swiss player Marc Rosset in its first two years in 1993 and 1994, as well as in 2000; the Swedish player Thomas Enqvist also won three, in 1997, 1998, and 2002. It is also one of the few ATP tournaments to have been won only by European players, with France with five (Forget, Santoro, Clément, Simon, and this year's winner Jo-Wilfried Tsonga), Sweden with 4 (Enqvist, Joachim Johansson), Switzerland with four (Rosset, Roger Federer), Germany with one (Boris Becker), Russia with one (Yevgeny Kafelnikov), Slovakia with one (Dominik Hrbatý), and Great Britain with one (Andy Murray).
In the quarterfinals, top seed Novak Djokovic advanced past Jan Hernych and second seed Simon advanced past compatriot Julien Benneteau. The other two matches were harder victories for Michaël Llodra over Mikhail Youzhny and fourth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga over eighth seed Feliciano López. In the semifinals, unseeded Michaël Llodra defeated Simon 7–6 6–2, while Tsonga defeated Djokovic for the fourth time in a row 6–4, 7–6. This set up an all-French battle between Tsonga and Llodra, which saw Tsonga come out in top in a close-fought match 7–5, 7–6.
