📍Yaoundé, Cameroon
1963 – 1971“Yannick Noah was born in Sedan, in north-eastern France, in May 1960, the son of Zacharie Noah, a Cameroonian footballer who won the French Cup with Sedan in 1961, and Marie-Claire, a former captain of France's women's basketball team and a teacher. When an injury ended his father's career, the family moved to Cameroon in 1963, settling in Yaoundé, the green, hilly capital, where Yannick spent most of his childhood among a large and lively family. He was a sporty, joyful, energetic boy, and he discovered tennis at a club near his home in Yaoundé, sometimes playing with a wooden board for a racket. In 1971, when he was eleven, the American champion Arthur Ashe visited Cameroon on a goodwill tour, and at a clinic he spotted the boy's talent and athleticism. Ashe gave him one of his rackets before he left, and contacted the French Tennis Federation. Growing up between Africa and France, with a Cameroonian father and a French mother, gave Yannick a strong sense of identity and of belonging to two worlds. Later in 1971 he left Yaoundé for the French federation's training centre in Nice, a hard separation from his family. He turned professional in 1977, and in 1983 he won the French Open, the last Frenchman to win it, falling to his knees on the clay as Paris celebrated. He later captained France to two Davis Cup titles and became one of France's most popular singers, and he has always kept close ties with Cameroon, where he spent his formative years.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today