Grunters, grandfathered in

[ollinger]

If either tour is going to do something about excessive grunting (which I consider to be any noise made after your shot passes over the net), the problem of how to deal with players already on the tour who grunt needs to be dealt with. I suggest folowing the model of the National Hockey League which made helmets mandatory for players in 1979. Concerned about fairness to veterans who didn't like helmets, the league allowed that players who had entered the league before June 1, 1979 could choose to wear a helmet or not. The ATP and/or WTA could do the same, serving notice to juniors and their coaches to adjust their habits if they wanted to play in the big leagues some day.

 

[Evan77]

Guys on the ATP tour are fine. Even, when they grunt they simply do it naturally because they are putting so much physical effort. It doesn't bother me at all.

Women, on the other hand .... I can't stand them shrieking and screaming. I don't watch the WTA matches at all any more. It's just a big joke.

 

[Virginia]

Grunting and/or shrieking has been and always will be, an affectation and not an indication of effort, except on rare occasion. It's done to try and intimidate their opponents and for no other reason. Think of all the players who don't grunt or shriek - do they expend less effort? No.

Even the players who habitually grunt/shriek have been known not to do so. QED

 

[sureshs]

If either tour is going to do something about excessive grunting (which I consider to be any noise made after your shot passes over the net), the problem of how to deal with players already on the tour who grunt needs to be dealt with. I suggest folowing the model of the National Hockey League which made helmets mandatory for players in 1979. Concerned about fairness to veterans who didn't like helmets, the league allowed that players who had entered the league before June 1, 1979 could choose to wear a helmet or not. The ATP and/or WTA could do the same, serving notice to juniors and their coaches to adjust their habits if they wanted to play in the big leagues some day.

How do you find out if the grunting happened before the shot passes over the net? Most of the time, it is at the impact of the ball or slightly before it, so by your criterion it is not grunting. Do we need to incorporate the speed of sound and the speed of ball to determine which crossed the net first?

 

[sureshs]

Grunting and/or shrieking has been and always will be, an affectation and not an indication of effort, except on rare occasion. It's done to try and intimidate their opponents and for no other reason. Think of all the players who don't grunt or shriek - do they expend less effort? No.

Even the players who habitually grunt/shriek have been known not to do so. QED

How do you know what it is an indication of? Have you ever played professional tennis and hit a 80 to 100 mph groundie? Grunting is often used along with exhalation and to find a synchronization event for rhythm

 

[ollinger]

Suffice it to say that enough players out there hit the ball very hard without grunting, so I don't believe it's imperative for anyone to grunt. As for deciding if a grunt is protracted, the chair umpire is well situated to decide if a grunt persists after the ball crosses the net (the differential speeds of light and sound shouldn't be an issue at that distance).

 

[sureshs]

Suffice it to say that enough players out there hit the ball very hard without grunting, so I don't believe it's imperative for anyone to grunt. As for deciding if a grunt is protracted, the chair umpire is well situated to decide if a grunt persists after the ball crosses the net (the differential speeds of light and sound shouldn't be an issue at that distance).

I don't think current grunts continue to be made after the ball crosses the net. They are more like a shriek near about impact time.

 

[sureshs]

Simplest solution is to use a decibel meter in the human voice frequency range, and smart enough to detect one loud human voice rather than the many in the crowd during changeovers, so that you don't need a human to turn it on and off during the points. It should also be intelligent enough to separate a short duration shriek or grunt from loud comments by the umpire over the microphone, public service announcements, or the irritating music that is played in some tournaments during changeovers.

A good science project for the juniors/undergrads on this forum incorporating acoustics and digital speech processing, and a chance to make millions even before graduation.

 

[hard2explain]

Azarenka's definitely lasts across the net.

Then of course, there's this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sGbzNAA0gI

 

[sureshs]

Azarenka's definitely lasts across the net.

Then of course, there's this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sGbzNAA0gI

Yes, but less than that is difficult. Biological systems cannot be turned on and off so quickly.

The other factor is that the sound will reach the opponent much earlier than the ball crosses the net, and the opponent will have persistence of hearing effect and reaction time to it - so even if the sound stops before the ball crosses the net, the opponent could still be processing the sound when the ball crosses the net.

 

[kragster]

Grunting and/or shrieking has been and always will be, an affectation and not an indication of effort, except on rare occasion. It's done to try and intimidate their opponents and for no other reason. Think of all the players who don't grunt or shriek - do they expend less effort? No.

Even the players who habitually grunt/shriek have been known not to do so. QED

Have you ever seen martial artists yell as they try to break a stack of bricks. Are they trying to scare the bricks?

To say that there is no correlation between grunting and effort is a fallacy. For that statement to be true, you must observe the average groundstroke speed of the SAME person in a 'grunt' and 'non-grunt' state. You can't compare groundstroke speed of player A who doesn't grunt and player B who grunts. For example Djoker is a player who doesn't grunt normally but when he grunts hard, that's usually when he hits his biggest winners.

Of course if the argument is that you don't need to grunt on every shot, then I agree with that.

 

[Gimmick]

Have you ever heard Bruce Lee combine the magical grunting with his rapid punching? The turbine howl of it does more damage than his fists.

 

[r2473]

If either tour is going to do something about excessive grunting (which I consider to be any noise made after your shot passes over the net), the problem of how to deal with players already on the tour who grunt needs to be dealt with. I suggest folowing the model of the National Hockey League which made helmets mandatory for players in 1979. Concerned about fairness to veterans who didn't like helmets, the league allowed that players who had entered the league before June 1, 1979 could choose to wear a helmet or not. The ATP and/or WTA could do the same, serving notice to juniors and their coaches to adjust their habits if they wanted to play in the big leagues some day.

I think ATP and WTA players should all wear helmets.

Let's be safe out there.

 

[AtomicForehand]

I played a dude in a playoff match last week who, as it got tight at the end of the first set, started yelling after he served the ball as it bounced in my service box. The first time he did it, it startled me and I missed the return. The second time he did it, I asked him to stop doing it, as he was making me think that he was calling his own serve out. He said, "I'm not going to stop doing it; I always do this when I serve." I said, "It's 5-all and this is the first game you've done it in. You just started this up now for some reason." He said, "It's from the effort of serving hard." I said, "Then can your yell come at the moment when you hit the ball instead of when it bounces on my side? There's a delay. You're hindering me."

He got all pissy about it and proceeded to try to time his yelling with the point of impact of his remaining serves. He didn't win another point for the rest of his service game.

The yelling/grunting stopped completely after that.

Just sayin'.

 

[kaleidoskope]

I played a dude in a playoff match last week who, as it got tight at the end of the first set, started yelling after he served the ball as it bounced in my service box. The first time he did it, it startled me and I missed the return. The second time he did it, I asked him to stop doing it, as he was making me think that he was calling his own serve out. He said, "I'm not going to stop doing it; I always do this when I serve." I said, "It's 5-all and this is the first game you've done it in. You just started this up now for some reason." He said, "It's from the effort of serving hard." I said, "Then can your yell come at the moment when you hit the ball instead of when it bounces on my side? There's a delay. You're hindering me."

He got all pissy about it and proceeded to try to time his yelling with the point of impact of his remaining serves. He didn't win another point for the rest of his service game.

The yelling/grunting stopped completely after that.

Just sayin'.

Good thing there is a net separating tennis players, specially separating me from this kind of players. Otherwise racquets would meet faces and teeth...

 

[Apun94]

Guys on the ATP tour are fine. Even, when they grunt they simply do it naturally because they are putting so much physical effort. It doesn't bother me at all.

Women, on the other hand .... I can't stand them shrieking and screaming. I don't watch the WTA matches at all any more. It's just a big joke.

Yeah, grunting is bearable. It's not that bad. Shrieking and screaming is just plain irritating. Hate that.

 

[AtomicForehand]

Good thing there is a net separating tennis players, specially separating me from this kind of players. Otherwise racquets would meet faces and teeth...

I'm assuming you are meaning him and not me...

 

[kaleidoskope]

I'm assuming you are meaning him and not me...

Obviously

 

[chrisberchris]

I think it's understandable to an extent. I've found it helps me get timing down when my pace is off. That being said, I only pull it out when I start to lose concentration

 

[merwy]

Azarenka's definitely lasts across the net.

Then of course, there's this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sGbzNAA0gI

Maybe she thought to herself: "lets stop grunting for a while".
I'm a guy and I grunt a little bit when I get tired and put in a lot of effort. I can stop it when I think about it, but my mind is usually on the game and I don't even notice myself doing it. It's not loud at all though, nobody has ever mentioned anything about it to me.

 

[not_federer]

I'm a grunter - sometimes

I've found it usually happens when I'm at a full stretch, hitting a defensive shot that i really have to lunge for. Also it happens mostly towards the end of a match when I'm really smacking the hell out of the ball and seeing it the best, timing is perfectly warmed up, etc...but still tired and worn out from 2+hours of grinding.

I don't even notice it happening most of the time, but when it does it is almost 100% due to fatigue or extreme exertion.

The idea of walking out there and shrieking on every damn stroke (including volleys, bh slice and other low-exertion shots) from point one is abhorrent and offensive.