OH! Here's a UH! Discussion About UHHH!!! Grunting in OHH! Tennis
By Four Walls
@FourWalls (86939)
United States
July 5, 2016 6:35pm CST
I'm a sports nut. As with anyone who loves sports, I have my favorites (baseball, hockey) and my least favorites (the NBA, which I don't like because "NBA" seems to stand for "National Babies Association").
Among the latter in my books is tennis. The main reason I can't stand to watch it anymore (yes, I did used to like it) is all the grunting.
It seems to me that there was a rule enacted a few years ago to put a stop to the grunting, which seems to be more prominent among the women (some of them sound like they're simultaneously having a baby and an orgasm). Fat lot of good it's done to stop it. I can hear the grunting from Wimbledon with my TV turned off.
According to a number of stories I read about it before taking keyboard to blank discussion box to voice my displeasure, the majority of the complainers are the fans. I completely understand that. My late, lamented friend, Tim Wilson, used to have a comedy bit where he talked about how they hush the audience in tennis (mimicking a British accent: "quiet, please, can we have quiet, please?"), then pointing out, "Mark McGwire can hit a 100-mile-an-hour fast ball out of the park with 50,000 screaming fans, so what's wrong with the tennis players?" 
Seriously, though, that may be the reason I hate the grunting so much. If an audience member can be chastised by the referee in tennis for breathing too loudly while sitting 200 feet from the tennis court, why are the players allowed to grunt so loudly they can be heard over a roaring 747?
There is a rule, and I wish they would enforce it. Until they do, I'll just read the results on the news crawl.
As I say, there's a song for everything. Here's Country Music Hall of Fame member Cliffie Stone's take on grunting:
Seriously, though, that may be the reason I hate the grunting so much. If an audience member can be chastised by the referee in tennis for breathing too loudly while sitting 200 feet from the tennis court, why are the players allowed to grunt so loudly they can be heard over a roaring 747?
There is a rule, and I wish they would enforce it. Until they do, I'll just read the results on the news crawl.
As I say, there's a song for everything. Here's Country Music Hall of Fame member Cliffie Stone's take on grunting:
5 people like this
4 responses
@FourWalls (86939)
• United States
6 Jul 16
Truthfully? No. They played the game for centuries without it. It's a ploy, as someone else said, to muffle the sound of the ball hitting the racquet in order to throw the opponent off.
1 person likes this
@JudyEv (382693)
• Rockingham, Australia
6 Jul 16
@FourWalls Okay. I hadn't heard that there was a real reason for it.
1 person likes this
@JohnRoberts (109841)
• Los Angeles, California
6 Jul 16
I looked it up and Jimmy Connors was the first big grunter and Monica Seles for women. The Williams sisters are grunters and Maria Sharapova took it to new heights. I stopped watching tennis years ago so have not heard the new generation of grunters. The reason why it needs to be quiet is because the receiver needs to hear the ball pop from the server which helps provide sense of direction and power behind it.
1 person likes this
@FourWalls (86939)
• United States
6 Jul 16
Well, they can't hear that with Serena screaming as she hits the ball, can they?
@JohnRoberts (109841)
• Los Angeles, California
6 Jul 16
@FourWalls That is why other players have complained about the grunting citing it is a deliberate distraction.
1 person likes this
@teamfreak16 (43685)
• Denver, Colorado
9 Jul 16
I've gotten to where I don't even notice it anymore. But I can see how it can bother people.
