The former Lincoln Journal Star journalist L. Kent Wolgamott, in an article entitled:  Musician and athletes share everything from performance anxiety to injuries, rigorous training to celebrity, wrote on October 4, 2008:  “Players in sport and music have so much in common.”

Yannick Noah The Bridge MAG image

It should perhaps be little surprise, then, that Yannick   Noah, the first and last tennis legend to have won the International French Open, has succeeded in switching so effortlessly from tennis to music.

Garros was actually named after the experienced French pilot Roland Garros (1882-1915), famous for being the first Frenchman to have crossed the Mediterranean by air at the outbreak of the First World War.

Noah first entered the limelight thanks to the black American, Arthur Ashe, who spotted him, aged 11, in Yaoundé, Cameroon, in 1971 at a tennis clinic during a tour with his fellow players.

Ashe managed to enrol Noah at the French Tennis Federation (FTF) training centre in Nice, where he remained for five years.

Rolland Garros French open The Bridge MAG image

Noah’s tennis career began to take shape and flourish during the French Open, when he competed for the Men’s Singles title in 1983.

His dream became a reality when he defeated the former world number 1 player, the Sweden Mats Vilander.

“At age ten I was dreaming of becoming both a world champion tennis player and a recording artist. However, leaving my parents and family in Cameroon at age 11 to the French Tennis training centre in Nice was one of the most difficult periods of my childhood,”  he revealed to The French Television Canal+  on December 1, 1993.

“I will always remember my suitcase was full with Cameroonian CDs and other item that could keep me in touch with my fatherland.”

Less known in Britain than in France, Cameroon or the United States, where he currently lives, Noah…

From tennis player to pop singer, Mr Noah is a perfectionist at everything he does….

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Rachel Tcheungna, Author, Writer of 

The Bridge Books and 

The Bridge Magazine Editor.