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public, to say nothing of the media, is real. In Marseilles this spring, Simon refused to speak with Racquet , letting me know he had had enough of the topic. Monfils, who didn’t even have a mobile at the time, was unable to be found before the start of the same tournament—which he pulled out of with an inju- ry—eventually saying he was unwilling to comment on the subject. Amid this general malaise is the one Frenchman who has the résumé to inspire confidence: Yannick Noah, and he has again been brought in to coach the Davis Cup team—and restore some respectability to French tennis. Noah has proved a master - ful coach, with wins in 1991 and ’96, in addition to a Federation Cup victory in 1997. He’s the last French male player to have
won a Grand Slam, the French Open no less, in 1983. As a player, Noah was the kind of character who transcended the sport. He was known for his on-court pyrotechnics, includ- ing flamboyant tweeners and fearless dives, as well as for being one of the most stylish professional athletes ever. Born in France to a Cameroonian father, he was surrounded by models and rock stars—fathering New York Knicks center Joakim Noah with Miss Swe - den 1978, Cécilia Rodhe, and later embarking on a successful career as a self-described “Af- ro-reggae” singer. French tennis was a mess, and Noah knew it. “Someone called me saying, ‘It’s on fire!’ I was asked if I could help and I said yes. The team wasn’t working.” He’s been very clear about how he’s going to fix things: He’s the boss and everyone else is going to follow. “Players deciding everything never works,” he said. “That’s why there’s a captain.” When I spoke to Monfils at the Austra-
t the beginning of the 2016 ATP tennis sea- son, for the first time ever there were five Frenchmen ranked in the top 20. Many coun - tries would be over the moon with that kind of showing—they’d label it a golden gener- ation. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Richard Gasquet, Gael Monfils, Benoit Paire, Gilles Simon: They’re flamboyant, they’re showmen, and they’re funny, capable of playing like geniuses and lunatics all in the space of a few points. On a good day they can beat anybody. Yet you can’t find a nation less optimis- tic than the French. French tennis fans, in general, are at their wits’ end when it comes to this once-hyped generation of players: They’re all tax exiles in Switzerland, they never win anything big, they have no fight- ing spirit, they have no mental strength, they don’t care if they win or lose, they’re divas, they have no work ethic, they never listen, they’re uncoachable. The tension between the players and the
As captain, Yannick Noah has won two Davis Cups and one Federation Cup for France. He is the last French man to win the French Open, having beaten Mats Wilander in the 1983 final.
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