From the prospective of the long-term impact on professional tennis (and mark that specific qualification), I find the cowardice of the WTA and the ATP in refusing to stand up to Seles and her ilk and nip the grunting and shrieking in the bud to be the most regrettable occurrence in the past three decades.
From the prospective of individuals and humanity, the attack on Seles was worse, but it had an impact on the sport for only a few years and has not had any impact in the past decade except for the GS win totals in the record books of a few players. The attack was not something that could readily have been prevented. Let's face it, security at tournaments was too lax back then, it has improved significantly since then, but if a determined enough lunatic with some fairly modest resources wants to take out a professional tennis player, in the year 2015, he or she will still be able to hop onto a court at some tournament and attack a player or else stalk a player thoroughly enough to track him or her down eventually off-court, given that few if any professional athletes have the security details and level of protection of a head of state.
In contrast, the pro tours had complete and absolute ability to prevent the disgrace to the sport that has resulted from allowing Seles and those who followed her to make a mockery of sportspersonship with their shrieking, grunting, howling and groaning. They would not have needed to invent any new rationale, they simply would have needed the courage to stand up to the several players first starting this trend, definitively stated the truth, namely that the excuses given by the players for the noises they were making as some sort of natural exhalations were simply bogus and untrue, and they could have applied an existing rule of tennis. If they had called these noises for what they were and for what they were intended, as intentional distractions of opponents, they could have ended them by enforcing the rule against hindrances.
The claim that these noises are natural and are the player exhaling in a manner that allows them maximum performance is simply a lie. How do we know this? Well, first and foremost, we know that virtually none of these players are making these extreme noises when they practice, notwithstanding that they may be giving match-level or near-match-level exertion when they hit balls in practice. Someone a day or two back had a thread here in which they quoted Caroline Wozniacki making this exact point, that none of the shriekers, grunters and groaners make their distracting noises when practicing and who would know that better than a top-10 pro player? That thread had a link to a video of Victoria Azarenka, one of the most extreme shriekers, in a practice session. Azarenka was laying into the ball with what appeared to be full power. And with no opponent on the other side of the court to distract, she was doing it silently, no shrieking, nada. I've seen the same thing said of observations made during practice of most of the other pros who do this.
Second, let's talk about when these grunts and shrieks occur: these cheaters (and it is entirely fair to call someone who chronically attempts to hinder an opposing player with distracting noises a cheater) grunt and shriek all of the time in their matches, not just on shots where there is heavy exertion. That's right, on slices, which require minimal exertion, or even on drop shots, these cheaters are still creating this distracting noise. Watch these grunters and shriekers, and a significant portion of the time they are not even making their noises until the ball has crossed the net, demonstrating that the noise has nothing to do with the effort needed to make the shot; I've seen this multiple times with Nadal, Ferrer, and Sharapova over the past year. Finally we have the case of part-time shriekers and grunters, like Serena Williams. Much of the time, even in relatively hard-fought contests, she is relatively quiet, punctuating her matches with a few shrieks of frustration when she cannot get to a ball despite her best efforts (and has already lost the point). But if Serena is losing (and usually it is when she is playing poorly), she sometimes starts getting louder with her groaning. Murray is this way, too, sometimes grunting up a storm, but other times, such as in his 2015 Davis Cup match against Isner, he is nearly silent.
Third, let's talk about the specific noises being made. There's a guy in my league who, unlike many of us middle-aged guys of moderate enthusiasm, is in good shape and goes all-out on every point, giving pretty much 100% on every single point he plays. He grunts when he hits and it's from genuine exertion. It's a noise that is kind of in between "Unnnnhhh" and "Huuuuuuhhhh" which is the sort of noise any normal person might make exhaling with a rather extreme level of exertion. His grunting is not really noticeable more than a court away. In contrast, we have shriekers like Sharapova and Azarenka, with their swinging-a-cat-by-the-tail screams, Nadal and Ferrer with their castrating-a-donkey groans, and even Murray with his Bart-Simpson's-Grandpa-trying-to-pass-a-kidney-stone "NIIIIIIIHHHHH-HEEEHHHHH" sounds, all of which are loud enough that they can be heard outside of stadium courts. All are unnatural and disturbing sounds, all are louder than any conceivable need to exhale or breath forcibly during an aggressive motion. These are not natural sounds, they are contrived and for the purpose of distracting an opponent.
Fanbois and fangurrls of the shriekers and groaners come up with all sorts of disingenuous excuses, explanations and denials, one of which is that what their hero is doing is simply what he or she does and has no impact on the sport. Wrong. What's one of the three biggest, maybe the very biggest problems in the sport of tennis today? Lack of worldwide popularity. The grunters, groaners and shriekers are contributing to that lack of popularity.
Get any group of 10 sports fans together who are not tennis fans and ask the group why they don't watch more tennis and you might hear several different reasons, but one of them will be "I can't stand all the players' grunting and screaming - they should be banned" and you will see every person in the group nod their heads in agreement. I have had at least six, maybe ten friends and family members over the past decade tell me the same thing, that the grunting and shrieking is a big turn-off for them and as a result, they don't watch that much tennis, maybe only Breakfast at Wimbledon and the US Open finals.
If you are concerned about too much subjectivity going into the enforcement of the hindrance rule against grunts and shrieks, it’s probably not much of an issue, but it would be easy to subject the players to uniform, objective standards. Have a committee study a hundred or two professional tennis players and other athletes, agree on a threshold noise level for an exhalation under full exertion, and start hanging up sound meters (which are inexpensive electronics items) about fifteen feet up, maybe 15 feet behind the baseline, at tournament sites during practice time before the tournaments. Give the players an opportunity for a couple of months to see if their exhalations exceed the set limit. Then hang the sound meters for real at tournaments and start docking points and games for sound level hindrances. The players will learn fast and the sport will benefit significantly. If they can turn off the noise on the practice court, they can turn off the noise on the tournament court, too. I guarantee that a few of the worst offenders will grumble, but no one will decide to quit tennis and take up curling or billiards instead.
A very sexist remark, considering global efforts towards equality and respect... Why is it "sexual" and "disgusting" coming from a woman, yet Jimbo Connors, Johnny Mac and Andre the A-Train are never spoken about in such ways???
Pathetic.
And as for your sorrowful "viewer experience", the players may remind you it's a privilege to watch their contests, not a God given right. Why do you want to CONTROL their behaviour, accepting only what YOU deem allowable and/or respectable? Some people actually like the different sounds coming from the court...
How can you say grunting, exhaling, breathing, stretching, straining and otherwise emoting is somehow measurable to a level where you will solely judge their right to participate in any tournament?
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Oh Definitely, as I've explained above, people like you are full of nonsense and you are wrong. You are spewing horse manure on this topic and are nothing but an apologist for these cheaters. I really don't understand the mindset of an apologist. I hope that if you have children, you don't ever date a domestic abuser or pedophile, as your children will certainly be expressing looks of shock, horror and utter dismay when they desperately turn to you for protection and instead of supporting your own flesh and blood, they find that you are sticking up for their abuser and calling them liars.