TITLE: Fixing a proof of the systolic inequality for higher genus surfaces
QUESTION [5 upvotes]: I'm currently learning some stuffs about systolic inequalities. While reading the relevant sections (p329 to 340) in Berger's Panoramic View of Riemannian Geometry, I noticed a gap in one of the proofs (starting at page 331). The goal is to prove :

For any non simply connected compact surface $(M,g)$, $Area(M,g)\geq Sys(M,g)^2/2$.

Berger considers a periodic geodesic $c$ realizing the systole $L=Sys(M,g)$, pick a point $m$ on $c$ and claims that $Vol B(m,L/2)\geq L^2/2$, which is enough to show the result.
However in the proof of the claim, he invokes the following fact : for $r<L/2$, $B(m,r)$ is a topological disk. He says that this comes from the "very definition of the systole". But this claim is false, it is enough to consider a torus with a long thin finger glued at some point to see it (fig 7.26 on the page where the claim is made shows exactly this). In the paper "Systolic and inter-systolic inequalities", Gromov, facing the same kind of situation, just says "chop the fingers", while this is intuitively convincing I don't see a way to make it rigorous.
My question is the following : is this fixable ?
Thinking a little bit about it, it seems enough for the rest of the argument to show that all but one of the connected component of $M\backslash B(m,r)$ are disks, and that the systole $c$ doesn't meet the components which are disks. But I am not able to prove this at the moment.
I'm aware that another proof is available, through estimating the homological systole. But I like the proof on the next page of Berger that the systolic ration grows at least like the square root of the genus, which uses the same argument.
I should also say that I don't have access the article of Hebda to which Berger refers.

REPLY [3 votes]: You don't really need to reattach chopped off fingers to get the estimate.  The point is that for almost all (in the sense of Sard) $r$, the points $\gamma(-r)$ and $\gamma(r)$ are in the same connected component of the $r$-level curve of the distance function.  Applying the coarea formula and the triangle inequality then gives the estimate.