Not more screechers polluting the air!
|Published
It all started with a Jimmy Connors grunt. A few years later Monica Seles significantly raised the decibels with a piercing screech every time she played a shot.
It is an affliction that has also affected Maria Sharapova and more recently, in the French Open this past week or so, Portuguese 16-year-old Michelle Larcher de Brito and another teen, Victoria Azarenka of Belarus.
We, of course, are talking about one of my pet hates and something that is driving tennis players crazy, not to mention fans and those watching on TV.
Yes, the grunts and groans and screeching that have been around for years have suddenly been thrust into the spotlight again with the Portuguese girl's opponent this week complaining about the noises coming from the other side of the net.
As the tennis writer for The Times in London, Barry Flatman, wrote this week: "Perhaps these noises emanated by Jimmy Connors could loosely be described as grunting but once the females got into the act it became more like a banshee's wail.
"First there was Seles racking up the decibels, next Anna Kournikova and then the Williams sisters, while Sharapova made things louder."
He's spot on.
The sounds coming from many of the women as they strike the ball are totally over the top and there have been times in the past week when I have turned down the volume on my TV or switched it off completely.
If I want to hear a woman screech and groan, I will find other ways - but not on the tennis court.
And though Connors was positively mute by comparison, why is it that women need to make such a racket, pardon the pun? When the world's two top men players, Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer, play there is hardly a sound when they hit the ball.
Why, then, is it necessary for the girls to scream? It is totally unfair on an opponent because the noise is still there when the ball is struck back to the other side of the net.
Hats off to the player, Aravane Rezai, who complained about De Brito.
Apparently this habit has its origins in the Nick Bollettieri Academy in FLorida, where most of the best players in the world head.
It is no coincidence that Seles, Kounikova, Sharapova and now Del Brito were all schooled at the Florida location.
So enough of the screeching and onto the real action on court where there has been some great tennis played by Swede Robin Soderling, who whipped Nadal's backside in the biggest upset in years.
Apparently there is no love lost between Nadal and Soderling and I read an article in which Nadal says that Soderling is one of the most disliked players in the locker room.
It could not have helped when Soderling revealed that after beating Nadal he received an SMS from the great Bjorn Borg to say he was glad that Soderling had stopped Nadal from breaking his French Open record of four consecutive titles.
That piece of information won't help the friendship!