The French Tennis Federation reorganized its high-performance operation on Wednesday, naming former world No. 6 Gilles Simon as director of high performance and moving Ivan Ljubicic into a new post as special adviser to federation president Gilles Moretton.
Simon, 41, will work inside the federation’s national technical directorate. The FFT described his brief as court-facing work with the French men and women it identifies as carrying the most potential, built around a strengthened presence at the federation’s two national training centres in Paris and Poitiers.
He will operate alongside the national team captains and the training-centre staffs, and the federation said other former French champions could be brought in to support him. No start date was published beyond an indication that he joins in the coming weeks.
The half that travels beyond France. Ljubicic’s new portfolio is the more consequential part of the announcement. The Croatian, who arrived at the FFT at the end of 2022 to run high performance, retains a hand in the French program but takes on international affairs and relations with players on the professional tours — and, specifically, the recently announced Grand Slam Player Council.
That body was unveiled less than a week before the US Open as a standing forum between the four majors and the players. The FFT owns and operates one of those four tournaments. Wednesday’s move means Roland Garros now has a former world No. 3 and one-time coach of Roger Federer assigned to that file as a named part of his job description rather than absorbed into tournament staff duties. None of the other three majors has publicly designated an equivalent.
Evolution or replacement. The federation presented the change as a redistribution rather than a demotion, with Moretton thanking Ljubicic for his work and saying the two had agreed together to let the role evolve. Several French outlets described Simon as replacing Ljubicic in the high-performance post. Both readings fit the facts: the title moves, the person stays. Moretton said Simon’s top-level experience and his willingness to pass it on would be extremely valuable to the federation.
The résumé. Simon spent two decades on tour and retired in 2022, peaking at No. 6. He has stayed close to the professional game since; We Love Tennis reports he has advised Daniil Medvedev in the period since his retirement. He responded to the appointment on social media by saying he was eager to bring his own view of the game to French tennis, and added a line urging the French players at Flushing Meadows on.
The timing. The announcement lands three days after Arthur Fils won the Cincinnati Open, the biggest title a French man has taken in more than a decade, and four days before the US Open main draw begins. It also lands on a day that illustrated the other side of the French ledger. Six French women entered US Open qualifying in New York. None reached the final round. Clara Burel, the last of them, was beaten on Wednesday by Qinwen Zheng, herself playing qualifying for the first time since 2022.
The federation set no numerical target for the new structure, saying only that it wants to give the best young French talents every chance to perform at the highest level. Simon’s own record on tour offers one measure of the gap he has been asked to close. He reached three major quarterfinals in twenty years and never went further.
