Yannick Noah (1960- )

March 18, 2015 
/ Contributed By: Jacques Portes

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Yannick Noah during a match at the Davis Cup in Amsterdam

Courtesy Hans van Dijk/Anefo (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Yannick Noah is a former professional tennis player who is best known as the winner of the French Open in 1983 and later as the captain of the French Davis Cup and Fed Cup teams.  After his tennis career ended Noah became a well-known pop singer and co-founder of Fête le Mur in 1996, a charity organization for underprivileged children.

Noah was born in Sedan in northern France on May 18, 1960.  His father, Zacharie Noah, was a prominent soccer player from the Cameroons who won the French Cup while playing for Sedan.  His mother, Marie-Claire Perrier, was a former captain of France’s basketball team and a teacher in Sedan.

In 1963, the Noah family, which now included Yannick and his two sisters, Isabelle and Nathalie, moved to Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon. Here Noah discovered his passion, tennis.  In 1971 when Noah was 11, his talent and energy impressed American tennis player Arthur Ashe who was on a visit to Cameroon.  Before leaving Yaoundé, he gave young Noah his tennis racket.

Soon afterwards Noah was sent to France to begin intense training at the French Tennis Federation’s training center in Nice. From 1976 to 1977 as an amateur and later from 1977 to 1996 as a professional Noah charted an impressive career.  After winning his first major tennis title in Manila, Philippines in 1978, he won 23 singles titles over his career.  His major achievement came in June 1983 when the 23-year-old defeated Mats Wilander at the Roland-Garros (French Open) Tournament in Paris. He became the first Frenchman to win the title since 1946.  He was also the first black man to win the title.  In 1986, he ranked 3rd internationally among professional tennis players in the singles category.  In 1986 he ranked 1st in the doubles category. No French player has achieved these ranks since then.

In 1991 Noah became the captain and coach for the French team that competed for the Davis Cup.  His team won that year against a U.S. team led by Pete Sampras.  The French team added another championship victory in 1996 against Sweden.  Noah also led the French women’s team that won the Fed Cup in 1997.

Also in 1991, Noah began a career as a singer with his song “Saga Africa.”  For the next decade he recorded a number of African and Caribbean styled albums which generated concert tours across France and the rest of Europe. Despite a decline in his popularity at the beginning of the 21st Century, he had a successful tour in 2010 that ended in the Stadium of France outside Paris before 80,000 fans.

Yannick Noah has been married three times, first in 1984 to Cecilia Rodhe who was Miss Sweden 1978.  She is the mother of his son Joakim (1985), who is now a player with the Chicago (Illinois) Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA), and his daughter Yéléna (1987).  In 1995 he married Heather Stewart-Whyte, a British model with whom he had two daughters, Eleejah (1996) and Jeneye (1997).  Since 2003, his companion has been Isabelle Camus, a French television producer.  They have a son, Joalukas, born in 2004.

About the Author

Author Profile

Jacques Portes, Emeritus Professor of North American History, Paris 8 University. Education: Ph.D., Paris I, 1987; M.A., Paris I, 1965; B.A., Paris I, 1964. Grants, Fellowships, Honors, and Awards: Gilbert Chinard Book Prize, 2000, of the society for French Historical Studies, for Fascination and Misgivings (New York : Cambridge University Press, 2000). Garlow Fund Award of Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody (Wyo.) for a project of biography of Buffalo Bill. Inaugural Foreign-Language Book Prize of the OAH (1994), for, Une Fascination réticente, published in October 2000, by Cambridge University Press, as Fascination and Misgivings. Prize of foundation Drouyn de Lhuys from Académie des Sciences morales et politiques (1990), for the book Une fascination réticente, les Etats-Unis dans l’opinion française, 1870 – 1914 (Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 1990). Prize John Jaffe, for the best dissertation defended in social sciences (1987), by the Rector of the Academy Chancellor of Paris Universities, (1989). Fulbright Scholarship, Harvard University (1991)). Professional Affiliations: OAH; French Association of American Studies. Publications and Other Projects: Histoire des États-Unis, de 1776 à nos jours (Paris, Colin, 2013). Le paradoxe américain (Paris : le Cavalier bleu, 2011) Les Américains et la guerre du Vietnam (Paris: Vilo-Complexe, 2008). Barack Obama, Un nouveau visage américain, (Paris : Payot, 2008). Lyndon Johnson (Paris: Biographie Payot, 2007); Buffalo Bill (Paris : Fayard, 2002); Fascination and Misgivings. The United States in French Opinion, 1870-1914. Translated by Elborg Forster (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2000); De la scène à l’écran.. Naissance de la Culture de masse américaine (Paris: Belin, 1997). I have been teaching American history–including political history, Vietnam War history, movie and history– at Paris 8 University from 1995 to 2012. My scholarship has focused on cultural exchanges between France and the U.S. I have worked on American cultural history and on the Sixties. My work has extended to television and radio, including appearances on Channel 5 and France Culture.

CITE THIS ENTRY IN APA FORMAT:

Portes, J. (2015, March 18). Yannick Noah (1960- ). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/noah-yannick-1960/

Source of the Author's Information:

Yannick Noah Official Website, https://www.yannicknoah.com/; “Yannick Noah,” International Tennis Hall of Fame, https://www.tennisfame.com/hall-of-famers/yannick-noah; Yannick Noah Biography as a pop musician, Radio France Internationale, http://www.rfimusique.com/artiste/chanson/yannick-noah/biographie.

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