Yannick Noah Noah's father, Zacharie Noah, was a former professional Cameroonian football star who won the French Cup with Sedan in 1961. His mother, Marie-Claire, is a former captain of France's basketball team and teacher. Noah has five children, of whom two were from his first marriage to Cécilia Rodhe (Miss Sweden 1978 and now a sculptor): Joakim (born in 1985) and Yelena (born in 1986). Joakim plays basketball for the NBA Memphis Grizzlies and for the French team. Yelena is a model, mildly famous in the world of fashion. They don't live in France but in the U.S. With his second
Tweener (tennis) version was called the "Gran Willy"), Yannick Noah, Ilie Nastase, Gabriela Sabatini (whose version became known as "the Sabatweenie"), Roger Federer, Juan Martín del Potro, Nick Kyrgios, Daria Kasatkina, Agnieszka Radwańska and Simona Halep. The origin of the backward shot is unclear; both Argentine Guillermo Vilas and French player Yannick Noah claim to have invented it. Both players used it somewhat regularly in the 1970s. Vilas was inspired by an advertisement where a polo player hit a backwards shot between his horse's hind legs. He debuted his version in a 1974 exhibition match at the courts of Obras Sanitarias Club