Victoria Azarenka shrieks with the best of them. However, that may soon be coming to an end.
This will come as good news to many tennis fans. Those loud, long-lasting screams, grunts and shrieks that sometimes last until after the ball has hit the court on the other side of the net may eventually be gone.
Can you imagine a match between Sharapova and Azarenka? It would be one continuous shriek-scream fest as long as the ball was in play.
Blair Henley of “Tennis Now” described Sharapova. “Maria Sharapova is the current leader of the pack with a paradoxical dainty prance/barbarian shriek combo that has convinced me she could dance Swan Lake while simultaneously ripping her opponentâs head off. She even headlined The Telegraphâs list of the top 10 grunters in womenâs tennis. Registering at 101 decibels, her shriek is comparable to a chainsaw or, my personal favorite, a pneumatic drill.”
I, for one, wouldn’t miss all that shrieking, grunting and groaning at all. Well, take heart tennis fans.
The WTA says it is working with Grand Slam tournaments and the International Tennis Federation to “drive excessive grunting” out of tennis.
In a statement, the women’s professional tour says it is developing a “sport-wide plan” to keep future players from grunting by educating them and instituting rule changes.
The WTA had said in January it was looking at ways to deter players from grunting, noting then that “some fans find it bothersome.”
WTA spokesman Andrew Walker declined Wednesday at Wimbledon to provide specifics of the plan or make CEO Stacey Allaster available for an interview. USA Today reported the plan includes developing a device for umpires to measure grunting during matches, and a rule to set limits on how much noise is acceptable.
Many players insist they donât notice or simply donât care about what their opponents do on the other side of the court, but in the end, their opinions are inconsequential. The WTA Tour is only as successful as the fans make it, and an increasing number of them seem to think excessive grunting should go the way of the wooden racket.
Azarenka said âYou cannot stop people from doing what they do on the court,â said another notorious grunter, Victoria Azarenka, in response to the controversy. âYouâre not trying to distract anybody. Itâs just normal. For me, I do it during the practice,
Well, I’ll be happy when that part of the players is gone. After all, silence can be golden!