One Hall of Famer is succeeding another as French Fed Cup captain.
Twenty years after he guided France to its first Fed Cup championship, former French Open champion Yannick Noah, who also captains the French Davis Cup team, will return as French Fed Cup captain in 2017, the French Tennis Federation announced.
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In 1997, Noah captained a French team led by Mary Pierce and Sandrine Testud that defeated host The Netherlands, 4-1, to win the nation's first Fed Cup in history.
France travels to Geneva for its 2017 Fed Cup first round tie against host Switzerland, February 11-12th.
Noah succeeds Amelie Mauresmo, who led les bleus to the 2016 Fed Cup final last month.
The 37-year-old Mauresmo, who gave birth to her first child, son Aaron in August 2015, is pregnant and expecting her second child in April, 2017. Mauresmo, who said watching Noah win the 1983 Roland Garros title as a child inspired her to play tennis, informed her players of her decision to step down last month.
"I'm going to give birth in April 2017, and it's incompatible with the Fed Cup schedule, the first round is in February and the eventual semifinal in April," Mauresmo told the media the day after the Fed Cup final. "I told the girls. They did not know because I wanted them to be 100 percent focused on the final.
"There was a lot of emotion of course, especially since we did not sleep much [last night]."
Mauresmo, who led France to the 2003 Fed Cup championship as a player, was bidding to become just the fourth woman in history to win the Fed Cup title as a player and captain.
Widely regarded as one of the most charismatic champions in French history, Noah led France to a stirring 3-1 upset of a heavily-favored American squad that featured Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras in the 1991 Davis Cup final in Lyon. Guy Forget and Henri Leconte were the starters on that squad that won France's first Davis Cup in 59 years. Noah also captained France to the 1996 Davis Cup championship, following it up by guiding the French Fed Cup team to the 1997 Fed Cup championship.
In the video below, the former singles world No. 3 and doubles world No. 1 says he was a better captain than player and reflects on the influence of the Hall of Famer who helped discover him and served as his mentor, Arthur Ashe.
"As a player I never had that kind of spirit that my team had when I was captain," Noah said. "I guess I was a better Davis cup captain than a Davis Cup player."
Photo credit: French Tennis Federation