Our series on Noah, forty years later
It was Sunday, June 5, 1983. Yannick Noah wasn’t aware of it at the time, but with his victory at Roland Garros, he opened a rare forty-year period without another French victory, among men, in a Grand Slam tournament. On the occasion of this anniversary, and with the guidance of his coach at the time, Patrice Haglauer, we return in a series of five episodes to Noah’s extraordinary journey that year at Porte d’Auteuil.
- Secrets of success: “Hide where no one can find us”
- Artist Beginnings: ‘He Was a Steam Warrior’
- Hitch without consequences: “Damn it, my back hurts!”
- From Lindell to Roger Vaslin: “The Tide Didn’t Run with Lindell”
- Nice victory: “Hagel, we won, we won!”
For Yannick Noah, the hunt for Roland-Garros 1983 begins…in Monte Carlo. “There was a click because he did any little thing there,” recalls his coach at the time, Patrice Haglauer. Losing the quarter-finals to Orantes, who is no longer the great, with bad behaviour. It wasn’t Yannick. I didn’t recognize him. Then the two men had a frank discussion. .
” I Saied to him : Yan, six weeks left, we really have to start. Roland, it’s your dream, the reason you play tennis. You have everything to win, Roland, but you have to work hard. Do you really want? Hagel remembers. He answered without hesitation: Complete! The device had to be restarted. The next week I sent him alone to Lisbon to show me what he could do. »
In Portugal, the French number one at the time lost in the final to Swede Mats Wilander after having two match points. In the process, he won the Madrid Championship. “I felt confident,” Haglauer smiled. The only mistake in the program was the Nations Cup in Munich (Germany). He was more exposed than anything else and he didn’t want to do that. I wasn’t hot either. He went there, gave the first game… Then he returned to find his fiancée, and the next day he missed the train back to Germany (Which made him stop after Roland Garros). It was nonsense. »
“Great job” on a country house
On the extended home to Paris, the duo pass through Hamburg. After complaining about the cold or the quality of the clay courts, Noah beat Wilander in the quarterfinals and won the tournament against Higueras on May 15, eight days before the French Open kicked off. World #6 last media appearance at 8pm on TF 1 the next day and then…curtain.
“Yannick was a big star. There weren’t many champions in France: Prost, Hinault, Platini,” recalls Hagellauer. We didn’t win much in team sports. Yannick, with his looks and the fact that he’s neither black nor white nor white nor black, is something very special. It was crazy!
The duo then opts for radical greening in the utmost secrecy, far from the pre-event excitement. We decided to hide in a place where no one would find us. Even our best friends didn’t know it, says Coach. We went to his country house in Nainville-les-Roches (Essonne). I contacted the boss of La Rochette, a small club near Melun where I sometimes went to train during my military service. There were clay courts, two of them covered. We only thought about training and Jan did a great, intense job with high quality. »
Four to five hours of tennis a day, jogging, gym and sauna
On the program, two to two and a half hours of tennis in the morning, lunch, a nap, and two to two and a half hours of tennis in the afternoon. “And when he got home, he went jogging with his two German Shepherds for an hour and then went to the gym in the barn he had equipped before ending up in the sauna,” Haglauer explains. We slept so well afterwards! Completely secluded, pampered… The secret was held for a week as we were in impeccable conditions.»
It is then time to sail to the west of Paris. “On the sidelines of his press conference, I answered a few questions,” said the coach. This is the only time in my long career where I have allowed myself to say: I feel very good and whoever defeats him must be very strong. I really felt it at the top. »
