Grunting in Tennis - What is your opinion?

"In a meeting last weekend in Key Biscayne, the WTA board of directors took up the topic, which according to WTA vice president of communications Andrew Walker, "stemmed from an increase in negative fan reaction to excessive grunting and an increase in media coverage, and we made a determination that the landscape had changed, and we owed it to the fans to take a look at it."

Some analysts and players have called for chair umpires enforcing the hindrance rule when a player is grunting too loudly.

However, the WTA's two top players and loudest grunters, Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova, have strongly come out against any measures that would attempt to change their behavior, which puts the WTA in a tricky position as they are dependent on their star players to promote the tour.

http://www.tennis.com/articles/templates/news.aspx?articleid=17046&zoneid=25

Watching the Djokovic-Ferrer match in Miami, both the players were also making reasonably loud noises, the difference between Sharapova-Radwanska and Ferrer-Djokovic being one of the frequency spectrum.

Praps this should be headed: "Should shrieking be banned..." I don't spose many mind the odd grunt by the men, but few can stomach the high-pitched shrieking of the women. The girls don't do it in practice so why are they inflicting this on everyone during matches?
Spectators should let their feelings be known by making as much noise as possible themselves.

Sorry? (while pulling out my hear plugs)

Tenez wrote:Sorry? (while pulling out my hear plugs)

Are you watching a recording of Sharapova-Radwanska?

Shrieking is off-putting to the opponent and a form of cheating - definitely should be looked at!

As I've said before it's up to an opponent of a shrieker to outdo the shrieking themselves. The original shrieker can hardly complain.

sirfredperry wrote:As I've said before it's up to an opponent of a shrieker to outdo the shrieking themselves. The original shrieker can hardly complain.

What if they end up feeling a little horse? (sorry)

reckoner wrote:

sirfredperry wrote:As I've said before it's up to an opponent of a shrieker to outdo the shrieking themselves. The original shrieker can hardly complain.

What if they end up feeling a little horse? (sorry)

Then they must be hard-up.

CaledonianCraig wrote:

reckoner wrote:

sirfredperry wrote:As I've said before it's up to an opponent of a shrieker to outdo the shrieking themselves. The original shrieker can hardly complain.

What if they end up feeling a little horse? (sorry)

Then they must be hard-up.

Apologies if that was a little pony...

To avoid cries of discrimination, I have kept the shrieking and grunting together.

Thing is, you can't ban the women from doing it and not the men, just because the women have a higher pitch.

Half the men 'grunt' in a non-effort way but it doesn't sound so offensive because it's quite a low tone, despite being quite loud.

Besides, Nadal does it, so it's not like they're going to change anything.

I do agree that it's not pleasant, but that's life.

But the sheer volume of it as it echoes round the stadium... really unpleasant.

I am deterred from watching womens tennis because of their grunting which gives me a headache. I am doubly deterred watching a game involving Venus Williams, because of the grunting and lingerie she tends to wear.

http://i.cdn.turner.com/sivault/multimedia/photo_gallery/1005/did.you.see.that.0528/images/venus-williams.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/01/24/article-1245542-07F6AE62000005DC-255_634x635.jpg

I've found that it's actually much less offensive in the stadium than it is on TV.

But the men are often just as loud, it's just the frequency that's the problem.

Should they ban any noise that's above a certain frequency?

I agree with dj, it is really annoying when the when the women do it (because of the higher and more piercing pitch) but doesn't bother me at all when the men do it.

But its either all okay or none of it is okay. Can't punish one side because of the different pitch... So I don't think they'll be able to do anything about it... Unless they bring in the rule at junior levels so that it most players don't do it by the time they reach the tour?

But even then, what about the juniors that do it already... It's a difficult one.

The difference between men and women isn't just to do with pitch, though it's not easy to define the difference.

However, it can't be all that hard to define as there's a world of difference between an unintentional noise that occurs as a secondary effect of intense physical exertion and the sort of trained, rehearsed screech that women players have been taught to incorporate into their game.
One tell-tale sign is the fact that the noise remains the same whichever shot is player, even if it's a block or a drop shot, since the noise isn't caused by physical exertion, it's simply a learned, automatic action that's invoked whenever a shot is played.
Also, whenever a grunt occurs as an unintentional result of physical exertion the grunt varies in accordance with that exertion. There's no such variation with the Sharapovas and Azarenkas, the skreech is consistent across every shot (again, since it has no causal link with physical extertion). The monotony of this type of noise is part of what makes it so unpleasant to listen to.

I find grunting and screaming both on men's but moreso on women's side hideous: Sharapova, Azarenka Verdaco...

Yep, of course you can't ban noise when it's just exertion of playing a hard shot, but I don't accept that it's the case for ALL of the male players.

Kuerten used to make a fairly odd noise playing every shot, it wasn't piercing and it wasn't in any way offensive, but it had very little to do with effort.

One could consider whether there should be any limits. For example a high pitch scream after every point, or a "yea baby" after every stroke or a "yaaboosska, that's what I'm talking about", or a "Geronimo" or a "let's be having you" or a ...

djlovesyou wrote:I've found that it's actually much less offensive in the stadium than it is on TV...

I agree it is likely to sound a lot louder on television than in the stadium because of the court-side microphones. I was actually surprised with one of the Q/A we had from Sarah Borwell who said that on court it didn't bother her because she never "heard" it. For me however I have difficulty watching the womens game on TV when Sharapova, Azarenka, Williams are playing. Azarenka's grunt isn't especially loud but I find it interupts my thoughts when I am watching. The dripping tap is a well known form of "torture". The wearing of lingerie and the grunting in womens tennis has been allowed to grow in the game. Not all women grunt and I don't recall much grunting in the past.