The grunting controversy
Today, most tennis courts can be heard reverberating with shrill grunts. The loud, forceful shriek is heard quite often when a player is about to deliver a winning stroke. The grunt is predominant in women’s tennis but many male players have also started
to utter a loud grunt while executing their strokes. Most fans and some players find grunting a distraction when it is above a certain audible limit.
Grunting in women’s tennis was introduced by Monica Seles and Jimmy Connors is credited for making it popular among men. Currently the William sisters, Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka, Michelle Larcher de Brito and Elena Dementieva are routine grunters
during matches. World number one, Rafael Nadal, does not grunt loudly during routine shots but is known to be very vocal during intense portions of the match.
Many players have demanded to ban grunting from tennis or at least penalise those players who do so. During the 1988 US Open, Ivan Lendl made objection to the loud grunting noises made by Andre Agassi, saying that his voices were deceptive for him. “When
Agassi went for a big shot, his grunt was much louder. It threw off my timing,” he said.
Former player tennis pro, Martina Navratilova, has even regarded grunting as a form of cheating. She strongly condemned it and has said that it has reached up to an unacceptable level and needs to be controlled by the governing body.
There are also many players who advocate grunting. When asked about it, former world number one, Maria Sharapova, replied that she has been grunting while playing since her first days on the court. Her shrieks have been recorded at up to 101 decibels. Just
for perspective, a lion’s roar is about 110 decibels. Michelle Larcher de Brito, who reaches a staggering decibel reading of 109 in her matches, plainly reflected that if fans do not like her grunting noises, they can simply leave the arena.
Former top seed Serena Williams once commented that she does not grunt on purpose but is carried away in the flow of the game. She further said that her opponents’ grunting does not affect her game play and she keeps focusing on the match.
Swiss tennis star, Roger Federer, is widely known as the greatest player in the history of tennis and has never uttered a single grunt while playing. The value of grunting is hard to verify but many players still believe it is an integral part of their game.
A couple of psychologists from the University of Hawaii carried out an experiment to evaluate the effects of grunting in a tennis match. Their published results concluded that loud grunting noises do provide players a competing edge. The researchers concluded
that the deafening shrieks reduce the opponents’ ability respond quickly to shots. The study also showed that opponents had a harder time readind the actual pace and direction of the ball.
As part of the experiment, 33 students of the University of British Columbia were shown videos as if they were standing at the baseline and the tennis player in the video was shooting at them. They were required to judge the direction of the ball as soon
as they could by indicating it on a keyboard. A total of 374 clips were shown to the subjects of the test, and about half of the time they were not able to predict the true direction of the ball.
During the other half of the videos, the researchers played a 60 decibels sound blast while the player was about to hit the ball. It was recorded that the subjects were considerably slower in predicting the actual trajectory of the ball. The sound impaired
their ability to forecast the course of the ball.
The researchers have already started planning their next round of experiments but these will focus on how players can minimize the negative effects of grunting.
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