Your tennis is too loud
If you close your eyes while watching a tennis match on TV, you may think someone’s switched to a porn channel. Grunting, groaning, moaning, shrieking, squealing, yelling. Is it impulse, gamesmanship, or biological signaling? Tennis officials are mulling over penalties for on-court noise.
The rise of grunting in tennis has become one of the most curious sideshows in the sports world. Baseball has steroids. Football has head trauma and Terrell Owens. Tennis has this. The controversy over grunting is reaching maximum interest this week because of Michelle Larcher de Brito, the 16-year-old from Portugal who made a lot of noise at last month’s French Open with both her tennis and her grunt. There has never been one quite like it – a violent squeal released with every stroke, which, at peak intensity, sounds like she’s in pain, ecstasy, or trouble.
The complaints about her in France have put pressure on officials in England, where Wimbledon begins tomorrow. The tournament is considering a crackdown: officially, the offense would be called a “noise hindrance,†and if an umpire declares a grunt too loud, the offender could be charged a point.
Wha-unhhh! A defense of the tennis grunt by Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
June 25th, 2009 at 02:53
MLDB’s banshee shrieks are crazy. They’re so high-pitched and lasts until her opponent hits the ball.
June 25th, 2009 at 10:57
Sharapova, for me, grunts too loud. What more of Larcher de Brito? I felt like my eardrums where shattered when I heard her grunt. I know that it’s part of the game for some players, but come on, there should be a limit to it.
“Federer’s failure to grunt, in other words, can be seen not as retro, but as an impressive adaptation to the evolution of the game. In a world of grunters, it may be the quiet man who is king.” — love this line!:)
June 25th, 2009 at 23:20
Players should know when grunting or moaning is too much. I think making noises while serving is a form of intimidation to assert one’s strength or distract the opponent. Making noises in tennis,whether intentional or not, is like committing racquet abuse–the referees can warn the players not to do it ,but I don’t think they can ever avoid it because tennis players are humans and tennis is physical. Now if chess players develop the habit of grunting before moving the pieces,that’s just really crazy and hilarious.
July 3rd, 2009 at 10:19
how about a point deduction for loud shriekers?!