YANNICK NOAH – CAPTAIN AGAIN BY RICHARD EVANS

Written by: Staff on 27th September 2015

YANNICK NOAH – CAPTAIN AGAIN BY RICHARD EVANS

epa04943519 New French Davis Cup team captain Yannick Noah smiles during a press conference at Roland Garros in Paris, France, 22 September 2015. Noah replaced Arnaud Clement, who was sacked on 18 September 2015 by the French Tennis Federation. EPA/YOAN VALAT |

Out of Africa. And onto the World Stage. Make that ‘stages’ for there have been few more multi-cultural, multi-talented, cross-bred careers than that enjoyed by Yannick Noah.

Young fans of his music in France – and there are legions of them – may have been somewhat surprised by the announcement that, for the third time in his life, Noah would be taking on the duties of France’s Davis Cup captain for 2016.

They sort of know that Noah used to be a pretty good tennis player but few would imagine that, apart from becoming the first Frenchman to win at Roland Garros in 37 years (as well as the last to do so) when he beat Mats Wilander in 1983, Noah was also described by most of his peers as one of the greatest athletes ever to play the game.

It is quite possible that, but for the intervention of Arthur Ashe, Noah, with his height, would have ended up playing striker or center back for Cameroon’s soccer team. His father Zachari, played for the national team many times.

But the way Ashe plucked him out of Africa one dark night in Yaounde when the 11-year-old Yannick was hitting with his uncle has been told many times, not least by myself because, along with Charlie Pasarell, I was the only other person to witness what happened. After watching for a few minutes, Arthur called the boy over and handed him his new, gleaming, graphite Head racket. Wide eyed, Yannick clutched it and said ‘Merci, monsieur!” turned, went back to the baseline, flicked away some huge insects which were camping there, and hit a big serve which he followed up with a cleanly hit backhand volley.

That just about did it for Arthur. “Kid can play,” he said turning to us with the raised eyebrow expression which used to come over Ashe’s face when he was surprised. So we went into the clubhouse, found his father and, after a brief conversation it was agreed that Yannick needed to move. The destination was obvious, his mother Marie-Claire, a white French woman, lived in Nice which just happened to be where the French Federation had recently opened its first national training center outside Paris.

So, by the age of 17, Noah was playing doubles with Ashe at Wimbledon – some of us had tears in our eyes at the sight of it – and then came the flood, streaming out of so many eyes when he won Roland Garros and his father literally fell out of the stands with joy.

French tennis player Yannick Noah returns the ball to Swedish Mats Wilander during their show match at the Tennis Show 2009 in Bogota, Colombia, 18 April 2009. Wilander won 6-3 and 6-4. EPA/LEONARDO MUNOZ

Although he never reached another Grand Slam final, Noah was a consistent winner on the Grand Prix tour, collecting 23 titles until, on retirement, he took on the Davis Cup captaincy. The United States team, who had to travel to Lyon for the 1991 final, wished he hadn’t. Almost bodily picking up a nerve-racked Guy Forget – not known until then as a winner of big matches – and throwing him back into the fray, Noah inspired the tall left hander to such an extent that he was able to recover from losing to third set to beat Pete Sampras in four. It was the match winning rubber and the place went mad. Captain Noah led his team in a conga around the stadium, dancing to the tune of his first hit, ‘Saga Africa’ and then 93-year-old Jean Borotra, one of France’s legendary Four Musketeers, came up to Yannick and said, “Thank you, thank you. I don’t how much longer I could have waited.”

It had been 59 years since France had last won the Davis Cup and Borotra, along with Henri Cochet and Jacques Brugnon had been on the team. (Renee Lacoste had retired). So Noah, once again, had written himself into France’s sporting folklore.

He was at it again when he returned to the captaincy to lead France to another Davis Cup triumph in Malmo in 1996 when Arnaud Boetsch, now a top executive at Rolex, achieved something no one had ever done before by winning the Cup for France in the fifth set of a fifth rubber. To do so, he had to beat off three match points against a gallant Niklas Kulti before winning 10-8 in that fifth set.

The final, long and intense as it was, revealed just what kind of man Yannick Noah was. When Kulti collapsed in agony with cramps right in front of a cheering and totally unsympathetic group of French supporters, Yannick sprang out of his chair to quieten them. And when it was all over and the French team had gone into their celebratory huddle, Noah ran over to the most disappointed man in the arena, the great and soon to be retired Stefan Edberg, and lifted him onto his shoulders. For Noah, sport is not sport unless it can be played in a sporting way.

After that his music consumed him and he started producing one No 1 hit in France after another. But, apart from Belgium and Switzerland, his music didn’t travel as well as his tennis although he did play once on the Central Park Summer Stage in New York in 2009, singing amongst other songs, “Angela” written for the civil rights activist, Angela Davis.

And, on September 25 of the following year Yannick Noah gave a concert at the vast Stade de France, where the World Soccer Cup was held, and drew a crowd of 80,000. No wonder he was twice voted the most popular person in France.

Charities, like “L’Enfants del a Terre” which was run by his mother before she died, and “Fete le Mur”, supporting children in need, have always been priorites for this philosophical and unusual man. Now married to Isabelle Camus, who works in French television, Yannick has children by all three of his wives and Chicago Bulls fans don’t need to be told that Joakim Noah is one of them.

Noah has returned to the captaincy amidst a certain amount of controversy because Arnaud Clement fought hard to retain his job after his team lost in the semi-final to Britain on grass the week after Wimbledon. But apparently he had problems with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and was voted out.

So Yannick Noah is back in the chair, asserting that he gained the support of all members of the squad before accepting the job. Now one awaits another chapter in the storied career of a fascinating man and a multi-faceted hero – a career, as Prospero might have said, “that dreams are made on.”

Topics: Arthur Ashe, Davis Cup, France, Richard Evans, Sports, Tennis News, Yannick Noah

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10sBalls_com says:

September 22, 2015 at 4:32 pm

YANNICK NOAH – CAPTAIN AGAIN BY @Ringham7- http://t.co/1yKkFr1M3X #YannickNoah #tennis #France #DavisCup @NoahYannick @DavisCup
10sBalls_com says:

September 27, 2015 at 1:32 pm

YANNICK NOAH – CAPTAIN AGAIN BY RICHARD EVANS- http://t.co/1yKkFr1M3X @NoahYannick #tennis @Ringham7