{"id":20001,"date":"2021-04-22T23:05:51","date_gmt":"2021-04-23T04:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/?p=20001"},"modified":"2021-04-22T23:05:51","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T04:05:51","slug":"kader-nouni-atp-wta-umpire-with-the-most-famous-voice-in-the-world-of-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/?p=20001","title":{"rendered":"Kader Nouni, ATP-WTA umpire with THE MOST famous voice in the world OF SPORTS"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Interview with an umpire: Kader Nouni turns youth hobby into career<\/h1>\n

Having joined the WTA in 2008, Kader Nouni is the longest-tenured member of the current team of the tour’s gold badge chair umpires.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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Like most younger siblings, Kader Nouni was eager to follow in the footsteps of his older brother in life \u2014 and that pursuit has led him to a fulfilling career as one of the world\u2019s best tennis umpires.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The son of Algerian immigrants who was born, raised and still resides in Perpignan in southwest France, Nouni was seven years old when Yannick Noah captured the nation\u2019s imagination by winning the men\u2019s singles title at Roland Garros in 1983. <\/span>After Noah\u2019s momentous achievement, Nouni\u2019s elder brother, Miloud \u2014 who is four years his senior \u2014 became enamored with the game. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI was playing basketball from when I was six\u2026 and I never used to be a big fan of tennis, actually. But after Noah won the French Open, my brother wanted to play. He even built his own racquet with a piece of wood to hit balls against the wall,\u201d Nouni recalled. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cTennis was an expensive sport in France, and at that time, we couldn\u2019t manage that, so we did a lot of different things at the club to help out, like handymen \u2014 sweeping the clay courts, painting the lines or the clubhouse, things like that.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAt one point, they were looking for umpires for a local tournament at the club, so my brother and I decided to climb up to the chair to earn a bit of pocket money and help pay for the tennis lessons that we wanted to attend. That\u2019s how officiating started for me.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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While Nouni, who was a two-sport athlete in basketball and tennis until the age of 16, had a fateful introduction to officiating, he showed promise almost immediately.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cThe first time I was in the chair, I was maybe between 10 and 12 years old doing these local matches, and those matches were with adults,\u201d he continued. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s funny to say now \u2014 when you\u2019re 12 years old and you get to say to an adult, \u2018I\u2019m right\u2019 \u2014 but people liked it too, actually. When we finished the matches, I would get good feedback. So when you\u2019re young, and you get good feedback, you want to continue with what you think you\u2019re doing well.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe French federation is quite involved with officiating and has a good program. With a lot of tournaments in France, there is a need for umpires. They invest in it, and the educational part of it is very important.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Soon enough, Nouni was on the national radar. In the summer of 1991, he and other aspiring young umpires \u2014 representing each of the country\u2019s regions \u2014 were invited to participate in what he described as an officiating camp at the national junior championships, which were, at the time, held at Roland Garros.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

After receiving top marks for presiding over the matches of peers his age, the teenaged Nouni was deemed ready for the biggest stages and the professional ranks. Less than a year later, at age 16, he debuted at a Grand Slam as a line umpire at the 1992 French Open.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, at that time, tennis was only something in my neighborhood or even in my region, so to be at the French Open at that age was something unbelievable,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cTo be somewhere that I had been watching on TV\u2026 you open your eyes and it\u2019s like, \u2018What am I doing here?\u2019 I was just happy. That year, I was the youngest of the youngest ones there, but I think the fact that I\u2019d gone there in August the year before, it helped. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d been in the stadium, but to see it full of people, top players, it was a dream. It was already a big achievement for someone like me, from where I was coming from and what I was expecting to do.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

After completing his compulsory schooling, Nouni elected to pursue officiating on a full-time basis. After briefly studying sociology at university, he supplemented his income from tennis events by working in bars in his hometown during the offseason. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIn high school \u2014 because the French Open is during the school year in May, and I had to miss school for that \u2014 teachers would ask me, \u2018Kader, what are you going to choose, tennis or school?\u2019,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAt 16, I was a bit too young to think about the idea of being a top umpire\u2026 but then after I did university for six months, I said, \u2018Officiating is what I want to do,\u2019 so I started on this path and it worked out.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Having received his white badge at an ITF Level 2 school in Poitiers, France in 1998, Nouni went on to pass a Level 3 school in Cairo, Egypt to earn his bronze badge in 2002. Promotions to silver badge in 2004 and gold badge in 2007 followed, and he has been a member of the WTA\u2019s team of chair umpires since 2008.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the course of his career, the Frenchman has been in the chair for the women\u2019s singles final at his home Grand Slam four times \u2014 in 2007, 2009, 2013 and 2014 \u2014 added a Wimbledon women\u2019s final to his resum\u00e9 in 2018, and was selected to three Olympic Games in 2000, 2008 and 2016. In addition, he has presided over four finals at the season-ending WTA Finals in three different cities and\u00a0numerous finals at WTA Premier events.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThings like your first Grand Slam final, your first WTA Finals, the first time that you are asked to be part of an officiating group like the WTA, your first selection to the Olympics \u2014 all the \u2018firsts\u2019 are great memories,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

And yes, he adds, even the first international mishaps. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time I traveled to the U.S. \u2014 I\u2019d been selected as a line umpire for ATP events in Montreal and Boston \u2014 and I was so excited that by mistake, I booked my flight one day earlier than I was supposed to,\u201d he continued.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI needed help to figure out my transportation and hotel\u2026 but I got an extra day off to visit Montreal. It was the first time I saw skyscrapers, because they didn\u2019t have them in my city in France.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cLeaving Boston later, I lost my passport. It was raining very, very heavily, and somebody found it under a bench and returned it. For my first travel, it could\u2019ve been a nightmare\u2026 but thankfully, that didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In recent years, the 44-year old has also made other considerations with respect to his travel plans. Nouni and his wife, Melanie Conesa, who met in 2010, have two young children: Oscar, 6, and Rosalie, born in December, which has required him to adjust his tour schedule.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cEven though my wife knew from the beginning that I was traveling a lot, I\u2019m lucky that she is able to do this all, too,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cSince I\u2019d been doing 20 years of this job, I\u2019d kind of prepared myself. I knew the world of the tour, and I knew that it wasn\u2019t going to be easy because of that, and seeing the people around me who had families and kids. It would\u2019ve been easy for me to say that it would\u2019ve been too complicated\u2026 but it was something that I wanted to have. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYou need a good philosophy and a good perspective, and I\u2019m happy that the tour can be a place for this. It\u2019s cool that I have the opportunity to do both, and that female umpires who have or want to have families have that also.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

And whether it is by revisiting his earliest days at a tennis club close to home, or appreciating his present in some of the world\u2019s biggest stadiums, Nouni has never lost the perspective that his officiating journey has afforded him. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never been someone who was saying, \u2018I want to do this, I want to be a top chair umpire.\u2019 I\u2019m more of the kind of guy who enjoys the moment and tennis is more than a job in my life,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been 12 years since the WTA gave me the chance to work with them, and I am quite happy to still be a part of the group here. I was lucky to be a part of the first WTA officiating group, and hopefully, I wish to work with everyone into another decade. It\u2019s a good team and we all have a good relationship.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter so many years, I still like to take all the opportunities this job can give to me. When I started traveling, I really liked to discover new places and meet new people, and love to try new restaurants. Now, when I go back to several tournaments, I have good friends\u2026 and I like to think that I can get good addresses in each town I travel to.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAt 16, I didn\u2019t want to say that officiating was what I wanted to do, even though I was hoping to do something with it. I wanted to do the best I could do and reach the level I could reach. Every year, I tried to just improve more and more\u2026 do one more step, one more step, and that\u2019s what happened.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Kader Nouni, umpire with famous voice, does WTA interview<\/strong><\/h1>\n
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It’s always the right time for a good invocation of “Time” with this guy. In a new installment in the WTA website’s fantastic “Interview With an Umpire” series, a familiar voice is featured<\/a> that all but sings bass on the chair’s microphone.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Algerian-born Frenchman Kader Nouni, a gold-badge umpire in tennis officiating, gets the guest treatment from writer Victoria Chiesa.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It would spoil the piece to put too much of it here, so go get\u00a0the full buffet of vignettes about Nouni’s upbringing, younger-brother status, and much more. Enjoy this small shard from his own career’s highlight reel.<\/strong><\/p>\n