Acting

Yannick Noah

Yannick Noah (born 18 May 1960) is a French former professional tennis player and singer, who was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2005. Noah won the French Open in 1983, and is currently the captain of both France's Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup teams. During his nearly two-decade career, Noah captured 23 singles titles and 16 doubles titles, reaching a career-high singles ranking of world No. 3 in July 1986 and attaining the world No. 1 doubles ranking the following month. Since his retirement from the game, Noah has remained in the public eye as a popular music performer and as the co-founder, with his mother, of a charity organization for underprivileged children. Noah is also the father of former NBA player Joakim Noah. Born in Sedan, in the north of France in 1960, Yannick Noah is biracial. His late father was Cameroonian footballer, Zacharie Noah, and his mother, Marie-Claire, was French. After a sports injury in 1963, Noah's father returned to Africa with his family. Yannick was living in Cameroon when he made his debut in tennis and was discovered at age 11 by Arthur Ashe and Charlie Pasarell. He soon showed an amazing talent that eventually brought him to the French Tennis Federation's training center in Nice in 1971. Noah turned professional in 1977 and won his first top-level singles title in 1978 in Manila. He became France's most prominent tennis hero in 1983, becoming the first Frenchman in 37 years to win the French Open, one of the four Grand Slam singles events. He dropped only one set during the two-week-long tournament, and defeated the defending champion, Sweden's Mats Wilander, in straight sets in the final, 6–2, 7–5, 7–6. He remains the last and most recent Frenchman to have won the French Open men's singles title.