All Grunts Are Not Created Equal: A Fan's Perspective

I was going to title this post "How grunting killed women's tennis" also came to mind but seemed a bit dramatic. "Why I dislike Victoria Azarenka so much" came to mind, but then I realized how unprofessional that might sound. And in all truth, it's not just Azarenka. Sharapova, Venus, Francesca... they all grunt, hoot, scream, call it what you will. It may have started with Monica Seles but it has now grown into something much different and way more annoying. Seles grunted because of the extreme exertion she put into hitting the ball hard AND on the rise. You could make an easy visual correlation between the swing and the grunt that made some sense (even if the sound was bothersome). Now the "grunt" has become a vocalization associated the player's swing pattern.

Azarenka's "hoot owl" sound has nothing to do with how hard she is swinging the racquet. I watched her practice in Miami at the Sony Ericsson Open the day before she was to play her final against Serena Williams. To prepare for the power one has to expect from Serena, she had her male hitting partner hitting hard shots to her from inside of the baseline. She withstood the barrage and sent most of them right back at him with interest. All done without a single grunt, hoot, or sound. Match time comes and it's a different story. Even sitting at the top of the stadium her loud and prolonged tone starts to wear on the audience from the first point.

Serena was injured after a tough match against her sister Venus in the semi-final round, and tried hitting winners any time she struck the ball because her movement was so hampered. At one point Serena hit a screaming service return back at Azarenka's feet that was so hard, the effort it took for her to get out of the way and try to get it back in play caused her to "double hoot". The entire stadium started laughing at her. At another point her hoots were so over the top loud and long in duration that a woman several rows in front of me yelled to the rest of that "She sounds like a damn Hooting Owl" which once again brought our section to laughter.

Maria Sharapova's scream (I refuse to call that one a grunt) is the loudest one recorded at Wimbledon ever at 105 decibels (Azarenka has been recorded at 95). She screams louder when she is up in a match and closing it out. And I can't imagine how she would ever think that wasn't a distraction to her opponents. Oh yeah, right. She could care less about her opponents.

Venus Williams always had a bit of a grunt/scream. But as she gets older and maybe the exertion is a bit more, it's just a full on scream. Even before her injury in her Australian Open match against Sandra Zahlavova she was screaming to beat the band. After she hurt her psoas (eliciting a very real and almost frightening scream of pain), the volume intensified. She completed her comeback victory with screams accompanying every shot. Not to be outdone, Sandra began to scream on her shots too. It was almost unwatchable.

Michelle Larcher de Brito is a young tennis player from Portugal who received more attention for her screams than her game when she emerged on the scene. It was so loud and outrageous that the tournament referee came out to her match at Wimbledon and gave her an unofficial warning. She is very unapologetic about the noise she makes and defends it in her interviews. I have posted some quotes by her below.

Coincidentally, it seems that that most of the grunters have come from Nick Bollettieri's tennis academy. Nick asserts that the grunting is natural. Potatoe/Potato I say. Grunting is natural, screaming is manufactured) Nick is quoted as saying "I prefer to use the word 'exhaling'. I think that if you look at other sports, weightlifting or doing squats or a golfer when he executes the shot or a hockey player, the exhaling is a release of energy in a constructive way." Nick, I beg to differ.

Azarenka herself is also defiant about her grunt and acts as if there is nothing wrong with it. What are these people smoking??? Here is what she and the two other notable grunters had to say about their grunts:

"People can do whatever they want but I hope they can respect all the players who grunt, which are about 70 percent of the whole tour...I have been doing it since I was 10 years old. I wasn't really strong and that was what helped me to accelerate more, to put more power to the ball. I cannot change it, that's what helps me to play. I have to keep going with the thing that helps me play."
"I can't change it, it's part of my breathing system and it's just natural and something I've done since I was a kid. I don't want to change something that comes natural.
Victoria Azarenka

"I've done this ever since I started playing tennis and I'm not going to change"
Maria Sharapova

"If people don't like my grunting, they can always leave" and "Nobody can tell me to stop grunting. Tennis is an individual sport and I'm an individual player. If they have to fine me, go ahead, because I'd rather get fined than lose a match because I had to stop grunting."
"I could (stop grunting), but, you know, it won't feel natural, because it feels like something is missing in my game if I just stop."
Michelle Larcher de Brito

So why all of this discussion and debate on grunting: it is now becoming a major issue for the WTA/ITF. Like any issue for a large organization, it's all about money. Fans are starting to reject the women's game because the noise. People aren't going to spend money to watch a match when they need to bring earplugs just to tolerate the players grunting. The final at the 2011 women's final of the Sony Ericsson Open was tough for the crowd because of the heat and the noise.

Larry Scott, the head of the WTA has finally admitted that this year there was a definite shift in the tone of conversations and protests about the volume of the grunters. "At Roland Garros, I agree, we started hearing about this and reading about it in a way we hadn't before outside Wimbledon. Based on that we have started a process of looking at it more carefully" (Reuters). Ian Ritchie, the chief executive of the All England Club, is now on record saying that Wimbledon would like to see less grunting from the female players. This issue has been a concern for Wimbledon for many years. The combination of Sharapova and Azarenka (and I'm sure the prospect of a Sharapova/Azarenka final) has brought it to the forefront with urgency.

The reality is that the tournaments only exist because of fan support i.e. money. Tickets, concessions, broadcast TV rights (because of fan interest and support). If the fans turn on the WTA, which is only now starting to come out of a financial rocky patch, it will hurt. Moreover, the players who are so unapologetic about their grunting should realize that in the end this is about entertainment. If you aren't entertaining you won't receive large amounts of prize money. If you are downright annoying and unapologetic, you might as well start training for your post-tennis career immediately after you leave from Bollettieri's.