Bernard Giudicelli and Nicolas Mahut Panoramic
Now vice-president of the International Federation (ITF), the former president of the French Tennis Federation (FFT), Bernard Giudicelli replied to Nicolas Mahut’s criticism of the development of the competition.
Between Nicolas Mahut, a loyal member of the French team and the former president of the French Tennis Federation, Bernard Giudicelli, a great architect of format changes for the Davis Cup and now vice-president of the International Federation (ITF), the atmosphere is not good. Sweet understatement. In comments reported by theTeam in Hungary last week during the victory of the Blues to qualify for the final group stage of the Davis Cup in September, Mahut, pillar of the selection, did not mince his words against the very controversial president of the International Federation David Haggerty and Bernard Giudicelli on the front line for the signing of the contract with Kosmos in 2018. We know the rest. A fiasco and a brutal breach of contract between the ITF and Gérard Piqué’s group. “We lost four years, we should never have put ourselves in the conditions to live this experience. They may have thought they made a good decision, but they saw that it didn’t work, Mahut said. It is a failure (…) I am very angry with Haggerty (ITF President). He had the unfortunate habit of disappointing us, we can ask ourselves what will come of it now. And Bernard Giudicelli knows what I think of his decision as vice-president of the ITF and president of the FFT. He obviously bears a great deal of responsibility in this fiasco. I see that he does not question himself. I do not agree with his arguments that he acted responsibly for the good of tennis. No. His responsibility, as president of the French federation, was to vote for the interest of the French federation and its licensees..
In return, the former manager of Corsican origin, who always felt that the old format had no future, spared no actually tennis the double winner of Roland‐Garros in doubles: “We will not be able to review the format before (home / away every year, editor’s note), it’s a long process of mourning for some but it can’t work like before, quite simply because the players no longer want (…) Nicolas Mahut is ignorant, because there are rules in the constitution of the ‘ITF and there is an article, which is article 19-C. which says that, as a member of the board, no one is accountable for his decisions vis-à-vis his federation or his region of origin. When you run the ITF, you can’t run for yourself, otherwise you’re a clanist. We didn’t lose anything, we saved the Davis Cup. And it’s not a 41-year-old player who is going to explain to a 20-22-year-old player how things should work. Well, Mahut is good for retirement, and maybe he becomes a journalist, that will give him the opportunity to make harsh criticisms, which he does quite well by the way. »
French tennis personalities were quick to react. In particular Arnaud Clément, former vice-president of the FFT, great support of Gilles Moretton – the current president of the federation, winner of the last elections against… Bernard Giudicelli. The attack is also brutal on twitter: A great gentleman of French tennis with a great career and an irreproachable state of mind on the one hand, on the other a tiny disrespectful, arrogant, smug, incompetent and embittered person. No, there is not going to be a match between the two.»
The captain of the French Fed Cup team Julien Benneteau also reacted on social networks in a more polite way: “ We cannot speak in these terms of a player who, beyond his record and always had an irreproachable state of mind. »
“We are not disrespecting Nicolas Mahut like that “, outbid the doubles specialist Edouard Roger Vasselin. A formula that is reminiscent to a lesser extent of Kylian Mbappé’s tweet defending Zinedine Zidane, after the very controversial release of Noël Le Graët on RMC…
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