While French players are struggling to play the leading roles in recent years, Yannick Noah has pointed the finger at French mentalities.
Yannick Noah is not about to have a successor. Thirty-nine years after his coronation at Roland-Garros, no French player is in a position to win the Parisian grand slam. Tricolor tennis will easily be satisfied with a representative in the second week a year after an edition during which no Frenchman was in the third round.
The latest results do not encourage optimism. Gaël Monfils, first Habs in the ATP ranking thanks to his 21e world place, on the flank, there was also no player from France at the Masters 1000 in Rome. A first in this category for French tennis since 1971. And according to Yannick Noah, the situation is not surprising.
“Often, when I was young, I was told ‘you’re too small’, I was indeed small, or even ‘you don’t have the technique’, ‘the French don’t win’. I grew up with this and wanted to break this. As a team it was the same, it’s not possible. It drives me crazy to hear that, he confided to the microphone of Télématin. It’s true that there are some athletes who said that I had stimulated them, that I had opened this door to them, like me there were people who also influenced me and who opened this possibility to me. to win which is not really in our culture. »
And the former world number three to insist on the mentality problem among the French. “We’re pretty losers, it’s romantic, and I didn’t want that”he continued, not seeming optimistic for tricolor tennis.
:
Gael Monfils (35 years old, 21st)
Ugo Humbert (23 ans, 44e)
Benjamin Bonzi (25 years old, 60th)
Arthur Rinderknech (26 ans, 63e)
Benoît Paire (33 years old, 65th)
Hugo Gaston (21 ans, 68e)
Adrian Mannarino (33 years old, 71e)
Richard Gasquet (35, 77th)
Quentin Halys (25 ans, 100e)
