Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, Managing Director of the French Tennis Federation

Audio 04:03

Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, Managing Director of the FFT.

© Christophe Guibbaud / FFT

By: Ariane Gaffuri Follow

8 mins

While Rafael Nadal hopes to win a fourteenth title at Roland Garros on Sunday, Today the economy paints the portrait of the one who wants to revive French tennis, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra.

Publicity

Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, a former professional tennis player, took the head of the French Tennis Federation last March. At 43, the former member of the management team of the insurer Axa, and of the Carrefour hypermarkets, reconnects with her first love. She explained it three months ago on the

Tennis Actu TV

channel

I finally chose to leave the golds of the executive committees of the CAC 40 groups to listen to my passion, to listen to my guts and try to tell myself that There was a moment in which I thought it was possible to change the lines of this sport to which I have remained so attached, it was with this team, with a transformation agenda, an extraordinarily motivating roadmap.

 "

Amélie Oudéa Castéra began her career as a professional player at the age of 13.

Dominique Bonnot was a journalist for the sports daily

L'Équipe

when she discovered her.

“ 

I spotted her right away because she was spotted,”

she recalls.

She is both brilliant and quite humble.

She had a lot of class in the field and she was very precocious.

She was brighter than Amélie Mauresmo and she proved it by winning the Orange Bowl in the United States which is a great event.

She is one of those exceptions, those people who won the Orange Bowl and who are not among the champions. 

"

So why has Amélie Oudéa Castéra not continued its momentum? 

 " 

She's a girl who is very ambitious, very demanding with herself," 

says

Dominique Bonnot.

Girls her age were Martina Hingis, Kournikova, top players.

She took a good look at herself, she took a good look at these girls and she said to herself, "I'm not that caliber. These girls are stronger than me."

So at seventeen she also had a pain in her shoulder, she quit tennis because she knew she wouldn't be the best.

She then began her studies, she did Sciences Po, then ENA.

Instead of fulfilling her dream on a course, she fulfilled it in graduate school.

And with the best, since she was in the same promotion as

Emmanuel Macron. 

"  

This mother of three children, married to Frédéric Oudéa, the general manager of Société Générale, will now put her skills at the service of French tennis, which is in great need of it.

Michaël Tapiro, founder of the Sports Management School, explains: “ 

From an organizational point of view, things are going quite well, we have the means.

There is a recent loss of licensees, especially among young people, and there is a lot of work to be done.

Where this is not going at all is in terms of performance.

While we are at a million licensees, which is huge, we can see that on a very high level, that is to say the Grand Slam tournaments and the general rankings, it is catastrophic.

The last Grand Slam tournament won by a Frenchman was in 1983 with Yannick Noah, and things are not improving.

A sport like this can only be radically expressed when you cling to champions who win.

Today we also have a loss of licensees because the champions do not win.

This is part of Amélie Oudéa-Castéra's roadmap

.

"

Amélie Oudéa-Castéra will also have to reorganize Roland Garros which has been completely renovated, to the tune of 400 million euros.

Roland Garros which represents more than 80% of French tennis revenues. 

Newsletter

Receive all international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_FR

  • Economy

  • France

  • Sports

  • Tennis