‘It was first time my dad said he loved me – the moment changed my life’
Yannick Noah was never able to match the emotions of his 1983 French Open win, writes Simon Briggs
In any normal year, this week would find tennis fans ticking off a list of familiar reference points. Red-tinted socks, shots of the Eiffel Tower at dusk, corny puns about Rafael Nadal’s latest “feat of clay”. This year however, the French Open will not be staged until September, if at all. To fill the gap, the Tennis Podcast – partners of Telegraph Sport
– have been compiling a fortnight’s worth of interviews. And today’s first edition addresses the ultimate passion play: Yannick Noah’s 1983 triumph at Roland Garros, the first by a Frenchman since Marcel Bernard in the year after the Second World War. Noah’s victory had the same cultural significance as Andy Murray’s at Wimbledon in 2013. If anything, though, it was even more emotional. When Mats Wilander pushed his final service return over the baseline, the court was invaded – football-style – by well-wishers, who gathered around as Noah embraced his father, Zacharie.
The whole moment was utterly perfect, Noah told the Tennis Podcast’s co-host, David Law. So perfect that, even though he played on for another seven years, he never rediscovered the same fire or purpose.
“When I saw my dad jumping from the stands, I lost it,” said Noah, who was only 23 at the time. “We just started crying and I was saying, ‘We won, Dad, we won’. And he said, ‘I love you, I love you’. It was the first time ever that my dad told me he loved me.
“This moment changed my life. The emotion was so strong and so pure. And it was like the best emotion possible. How many times do you cry with happiness in the arms of your father? In front of millions of people?
“To this day, people always talk to me about it. Every day if I walk in France, somebody is going to tell me: ‘Yannick, I remember where I was. It was such a beautiful day. We were with the family. We jumped up and down in front of the TV. We started crying and we hugged each other.’ And the best part is that I have it on tape and I can show my children.
“I was not motivated to have another [grand slam title]. I was working hard, but I never had this extra fire which was almost spiritual. It was a question of living or dying. My goal was to win the French Open, and it went beyond, because of my dad coming and because the energy was so perfect. It couldn’t be better. It was a dream.”
Even though Noah never appeared in another major final, his life continued to feel like a fairy tale. After retirement, most players coach or commentate. He became a platinumselling recording artist. Equipped with movie-star charisma, he was always a player in the broadest of senses. Yet he made a big effort to stay away from the nightlife in the build-up to his biggest win. As he told Law, he had encountered a crisis during the Monte Carlo Open a couple of months earlier.
“I had been working with my coach Patrice [Hagelauer],” Noah explained. “We said we had one goal: to win this [the French Open]. But in Monte Carlo, I was playing Manuel Orantes. He was 36; it was an easy game for me. The night before, my friends are calling, saying, ‘Yannick, what are you doing? We are in Monte Carlo. It’s party time’.
“I say, ‘OK, I will just come for one drink’. So I end up staying late. Way too late. I play the match, win the first set, and then lose because I got tired. So Patrice came to me and said: ‘OK, you really screwed up. I don’t want to be your coach. I would rather stay your friend. I heard that you went out last night. I cannot work like this.’
“So I said to him: ‘Patrice I am really embarrassed. I swear from now on, let’s go on, let’s do it.’ We went right away, to practise for three hours. And then I went to work as I never did in my life. By the time we got to Paris, I was ready.”
Noah dropped a single set, to third seed Ivan Lendl in the quarter-finals. It was a tour de force, from a player who will surely go down as the coolest man to win a major title.
The full Yannick Noah interview features in the first edition of “Roland Garros Re-Lived”, published by the Tennis Podcast.