Gilles Moretton, the president of the French Federation, announced this Thursday during a press conference at Roland-Garros that French tennis star Yannick Noah (63) has been named coach of the Paralympic team for the Olympic Games in Paris 2024.
The former Davis Cup captain (1991-1992; 1995-1998; 2016-2018) is back in action.
“Yannick Noah will be captain of the French men’s team for the Paralympic Games. He will come and train our teams. Yannick will take on this challenge because he is a man of challenges, he has demonstrated it, he is a leader of men. Yannlck has mental preparation in his mission with the Federation. He comes to the CNE very often. He met Paralympic athletes who train year-round at the CNE. With Yannick we talked. I felt that this challenge attracted him. He told me he would like to be captain of the men’s team. Stéphane Oudet, whom he knows well, encouraged him to make this decision. And Yannick is already present at training. He still wants to give for our Federation. The marriage was made,” summarized the president of the FFT.
Yannick Noah explained: “The idea of being captain came from Stéphane Houdet who called me before the Tokyo Olympics. 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 overwhelmed and thought what a great idea! Then it took a little while for it to come together. It’s a fantastic adventure. I’m super excited. We are currently in a phase where we are getting to know each other. I also discover the specificities of wheelchair tennis, the areas to work on, our strong points and our weak points. It is exciting. We will organize an internship in February at the CNE. Then, we will meet at the World Championships in Turkey in May, then at Roland Garros, and at two other tournaments in June before preparing for the Games which will take place at the end of the month. August (August 30 to September 7). It’s an extraordinary human adventure. The guys are fantastic, attentive. We are eight months away from the Games and for now the goal is to improve every day. If some, like Stéphane Houdet, already have a good track record, others have plenty of room for improvement. The objective is to put them in the best possible conditions during the week of the tournament and to perform to the maximum.”
