Yannick Noah is to lead France to defending the Davis Cup title – and will also remain head of the Fed Cup. This was announced by the French Tennis Federation.
Next stop Albertville – at least for Yannick Noah. As the French Tennis Association announced on Twitter, Noah will continue to be the Grand Nation’s captain of the Davis Cup next year. And the start of the mission title defence takes place in the Olympic city of 1992, at the beginning of 2018 against the team of the Netherlands.
For 16 years, France had to wait for the most important title in team tennis for Lucas Pouille, who beat Steve Darcis in the decisive singles match last Sunday. Yannick Noah took a small risk against Belgium with his line-up, renounced double specialist Nicolas Mahut – and gave priority to Richard Gasquet. Certainly also to be able to pull a third option for a single person in an emergency. In the coming year, the team bosses will generally have an easier time of it: from 2018 onwards, five players will be allowed to be nominated for a Davis Cup encounter.
The task against the Dutch seems to be feasible not only because of the clearly better placed French players in the world ranking and the home advantage – in a direct comparison France is in the lead with 10:0.
One week after Albertville, Yannick Noah is about to play the next international game, but then at the side of the Fed Cup team – as the 1983 French Open Champion was confirmed in this position as well. My opponent will be the Belgian team.