And Guy Forget invoked Yannick Noah. Having reached the end of his contract, the former French tennis number one leaves his post as tournament director at Roland Garros and the Masters 1000 in Paris. At first, nothing was known of the motivations of the one who piloted these two great tournaments, among the main ones on the circuit, since 2016 for the Major on clay and since 2012 for the Masters 1000 indoors.
And then the team posted an interview that explains (pretty much) everything. Where we learn that things were not going strong between the former world number four, 56, and Gilles Moretton, the president of the French Tennis Federation (FFT).
“I have always considered human relationships to be essential; I think it was Yannick (Noah) who was the first to instill this in us, which was very important in the successes we had in Davis Cup», tells Forget, recalling the memory of the France team which had overthrown the United States in 1991, during a fiery final in Lyon. Guy Forget who, in addition to the 2001 salad bowl won with Cédric Pioline, Nicolas Escudé and Sébastien Grosjean, will also lead the French tenniswomen to victory in the Fed Cup in 2003.
So human relationships, “It must be the driving force, confidence, and if I don’t feel this balance, this alchemy around me, I’m not well”, continues the now ex-director of Roland-Garros, which he piloted for six years. “From the start of Gilles’ mandate [en février, ndlr], I felt that the communication was not going […] Communication never existed with him. And clearly, I felt that there was no trust ”, asserts Forget. The FFT immediately announced that “His succession for the Parisian Grand Slam (would) be announced in the coming days”.
A “love story with Roland-Garros”
If the former captain of the French tennis team – for 14 years, a record – is said “sad” From this page that turns, he assures us that he leaves on his own and that Gilles Moretton made him an offer, which he refused. “My buddy just got kicked out of the tennis family… ”, however exclaimed Yannick Noah, his friend and former captain, on his Instagram account, apparently unaware of the bickering and surprised by this announcement.
The last French winner of Roland-Garros at men’s “Has a lot of aura, we’re tall, he has a fairly strong persuasive capacity, but I didn’t want to keep him informed of what was going on and what I was going through, continues Forget in the team. He’s like me, we were a boarder at Roland-Garros, it’s a love affair we have with this stadium, a second home. He and I are perhaps the ones who have spent the most time in this house, for thirty, forty years. We have a very emotional relationship, perhaps too much, with this institution… ”
Guy Forget’s name was cited in early October in the Pandora Papers, an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), according to which he had benefited from opaque tax packages in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. The ethics committee of the FFT had self-seized of this case and had cleared Forget, on November 5, “In the absence of tax evasion or other criminally reprehensible behavior established“. This case did “not at all” played in the announcement of his resignation, he assured Tuesday.
