If Yannick Noah is one of the best known and most popular French sportsmen, it is of course for his many sporting exploits. The native of Yaoundé in Cameroon remains to this day the last French tennis player to have won Roland Garros and a Grand Slam title. A successful feat in 1983 after an almost immaculate journey at the Porte d’Auteuil. He will even afford the luxury of leaving no set to Mats Wilander, yet future triple winner, in the final. A match that looks like a perfect copy that still remains in the memories of fans of the little yellow ball. Even if one of them seems to have a somewhat bitter memory of this feat.
Indeed, a man claims to have bought the racket used by the tennis player during his final victory at Roland Garros. The object would have been sold to him at auction three years later in order to raise funds for the association Care France then chaired by the mother of the tennis player. The fan would have paid the sum of 12,000 francs (about 3,300 euros), to acquire the precious sesame.
But at the start of 2022, 36 years after the purchase, the Versailles court examined a complaint filed by the purchaser of the object according to information from the 20 minutes site. In question, a possible false certificate of authenticity written by Yannick Noah at the time of the auction and the sale of the racket.
On the side of the plaintiff named Pierre and who was forced to put it up for sale in order to pay the medical expenses of his sick wife in 2017, we are claiming several tens of thousands of euros in damages for the moral prejudice suffered, d reimbursement for the purchase and drafting of a false document by the former champion. On the side of the singer’s defense, the allegations have been denied en bloc and it is requested that Yannick Noah be cleared of all suspicion. Master Bourdon, his lawyer, claimed the prescription of this 30-year-old case.
Thursday April 7, 2022, the court of Versailles declared Thursday this action “inadmissible” because “prescribed”, the sale having been carried out 33 years before the referral to the court. “The court accepted our argument. This action, more than 30 years after the sale, was obviously too late. The rest was just fantasy“, reacted the lawyer of the former tennis player.
Thibaud Cruz
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