sport news MIKE DICKSON: Charismatic Yannick Noah reminds us of France's years out in the ... trends now
Yannick Noah, still cool as anything at 63, was back at Roland Garros last weekend and delighting the crowds again.
He was on the same Court Philippe Chatrier where, 40 years ago, he caused a sensation by becoming the first men’s singles champion from the host nation since 1946.
This time Noah was singing, not playing, because it turned out that becoming a tennis hero was the pathway to a second career in the music business.
He is alive and well, but at the same time there is the sense that he is the ghost that haunts the French Open. He is a living reminder of glory days that his male successors have failed to rekindle, and his legend casts a long shadow.
Aside from anything Noah, who also became a winning Davis Cup captain, had a remarkable back story. Born in the Ardennes to a Cameroon footballer father, he moved to Africa as an infant before being spotted by Arthur Ashe and taken back to France to train as a tennis player.
Yannick Noah was back at Roland Garros last weekend and delighting the crowds again
No Frenchman has matched his feat of winning Roland Garros since 1983, and it is an odd phenomenon that this seems further from happening than has been the case for years.
Indeed the French game is further evidence of the fact — brought into focus last week by the fortunes of British players — that there is little correlation between a national federation having bountiful financial resources and creating elite players. It could even be argued that it is counter-productive.
Sometimes it looks that way with the three Grand Slam nations aside from the United States, which is different with its vast population and infrastructure. There were 35 Americans starting out in the Roland Garros singles draws, a contrasting number to those in on merit from Britain, France and Australia.
The UK has been hopeless for decades when it comes to finding any volume of players. Australia has increasingly struggled, and on the women’s side has only one player in the top 100, the Croatian-born, Florida-based Ajla Tomljanovic. They do, however, have the lesser-seen Nick Kyrgios, plus Alex de Minaur in the top 30.
France has one top-10 woman in Caroline Garcia, but she has spent most of this season with only veteran Alize Cornet for company in the top 100. For much of 2023 their highest ranked male has been Richard Gasquet floating around the 40-mark, and he is about to turn 37.
No Frenchman has matched the 63-year-old's feat of winning Roland Garros since 1983
Theirs is a particularly strange case, because there is probably no other country where tennis is more popular, or more deeply woven into the sporting culture.
The French love the game in a way that far fewer people in the UK do. They have around one million officially licensed players and it is a very accessible sport, about which people care a lot.
Noah’s triumph all those years ago is a contributor to that, but the bottom-up growth of the game was facilitated by the man the main court at Roland Garros is named after. A former journalist, Chatrier
