Sports Special: The strange phenomenon of grunting in Tennis
The loud grunt that a lot of players emit right as they are serving the ball is becoming very common in the game of tennis. In the past a few champions have complained about the grunting of other players saying that it is too distracting and too loud. A
recent study though has claimed that grunting may actually help a tennis player.
The very famous female tennis player, Monica Seles, is often credited with starting the grunting phenomenon in the women’s game. She was one of the loudest female tennis players and when she first started doing it, a lot of her opponents complained about
it. One of the first men to start the trend was Jimmy Connors. Over time many other grunters have emerged in the sport; the Williams sisters, Maria Sharapova, Michelle Larcher de Brito and on the men’s side world number one Rafael Nadal. Why people do it and
how it affects the game is a very interesting topic.
Martina Navratilova is one of the biggest critics of grunting along with Chris Evert. During their playing days they strongly criticised and made formal complaints against grunting and those who did it. But it seems to have become acceptable and umpires
rarely penalise players who do it. Ivan Lendl formally complained about Andre Agassi’s grunting during the 1988 US Open; he said that it threw off his timing.
This seems to be the biggest reason why players complain about it. They say it throws off their timing and hinders their ability to play return shots. Navratilova is one of the biggest opponents of the practice going so far as to calling it cheating because
it hinders the other player that is in the game. Chris Evert does not call it cheating but she does think that the practice is a problem and it seems to be getting worse with the current crop of young players.
A lot of players who grunt defend the practice because; they say that it is part of their routine. They say that tennis is an individual sport and it will now ruin their gameplay if they try to change. Psychologists say that it is part of an athlete’s rhythm
and helps them in their timing. Tennis coaches also defend the grunting that goes on at the moment. They say that it is a form of energy release and many other sports feature the same thing, like weightlifting does when a lifter grunts at the exact moment
when the most exertion takes place.
A recent study that has taken place by American and Canadian researchers, shows that grunting might be beneficial for players. Navratilova’s claim of cheating may have been proven with this study because it says that grunting by a player can interfere with
the other player’s performance, and it will make their responses slower and less accurate. This can really hinder a tennis player’s game and make problems for the overall sport. With the sound levels of some tennis players, like Michelle Larcher de Brito reaching
109 decibels, this problem will only get worse in the future. One can get an idea about how loud this is if we see that the roar of a lion stands at 110 decibels.
It looks like stricter punishment could be taken against grunters. The International Tennis Federation is looking into proposals that could make grunting illegal in the Federation’s code of conduct. With the new rule, noise hindrance, meaning grunting, could
force an opponent to forfeit a game or the whole match even. At the moment noise hindrance may only result in an umpire awarding a point to the other player, if they feel it affected the other player’s performance in a significant way. The new rule will force
players to control the noises they make during a game.
One has to wait and watch whether grunting is stopped, or if it is allowed to continue at the same frequency. It could be that we may see more tennis players emerge who grunt and shriek, as if they were being killed but at the same time we may also see new
players emerge like Roger Federer who are at the top of the sport but never utter a sound while playing.
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