After guiding France to success in the Davis Cup and Fed Cup, Yannick Noah was offered a major new challenge this Thursday, December 14, by being named captain of the men’s wheelchair tennis team for the 2024 Paralympic Games from Paris.
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“ Our French Paralympic team will be under the leadership of a captain called Yannick Noah. He will be captain of the French men’s team for the JOPs », announced Gilles Moretton, president of the FFT, during a press conference at Roland-Garros. “ It’s a fantastic adventure. I’m super excited. We are currently in a phase where we are getting to know each other (…) We are eight months away from the Games and for the moment the objective is to improve on a daily basis », Commented Noah, in a press release released by the FFT.
He has already participated in several training courses with the team’s players, including Stéphane Houdet, Paralympic doubles champion in Beijing, Rio and Tokyo. “ The idea of being captain came from Stéphane (…) He told me: ”you played individually, you won the Davis Cup, the Fed Cup, but you’re not a real crazy person , because you never came with us. I was shocked and thought what a great idea. », Said the former winner of Roland Garros.
Fighting spirit
“ Yannick will take on this challenge because he is a man of challenges, he has demonstrated it, he is a leader of men. He still wanted to give for our federation and that’s so much the better, because he can bring », assured Gilles Moretton. “ A man of challenges », now aged 63, who managed to overcome them one by one during his brilliant career in tennis.
Firstly when he was a player, with his unforgettable coronation at Roland-Garros in 1983, which remains the last victory of a French player in a Grand Slam.
Then when he took on the role of captain of the French men’s and women’s teams, transmitting a rage to win which has worked miracles several times, to the point of inheriting the image of a wizard of winning. You only had to see the rebirth of Henri Leconte and the trance of Guy Forget in 1991 against the Americans Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, to have proof of this unique know-how which led to the coronation in the Davis Cup, trophy which had not been raised by the Blues for 59 years.
Noah did it again in 1996, with Forget as leader, supervising another generation, that of Cédric Pioline, Guillaume Raoux, Arnaud Boetsch, to win the event once again in Sweden.
New challenge
Between two hits, including “Saga Africa” which also made him famous on the French music scene, he then conveys an unusurped image of a winner, which fascinates even in football. To the point that PSG called on his services as a mental trainer that same year. Its positive vibes revive a group lacking solidarity, which then manages to win the European Cup Winners’ Cup.
The following year, Noah took the reins of the French women’s team which he led to triumph in the Fed Cup (now Billie Jean King Cup), the first won by France, with Mary Pierce, Sandrine Testud and Nathalie Tauziat among others.
After a hiatus of several years, he returned to service in this captaincy role which stuck to him, at the helm of the men’s and women’s teams, and won a third Davis Cup in 2017, beating Belgium in the final.
The new challenge he is about to take on, Noah approaches it as “ an extraordinary human adventure “. She could also add a few gold letters (Paralympic) to her prestigious record during the Games, which will take place from August 28 to September 8 on the clay court of Roland Garros. The same place where, four decades earlier, he entered the history of French tennis.
(With AFP)