Posted on 02/27/2008 3:41:27 AM PST by SkyPilot
Edited on 02/27/2008 8:09:32 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
A 9-year-old tennis player who grunts like her idol, Maria Sharapova, when she's playing has been kicked out of a tennis club in Australia.
The Melbourne Herald-Sun reports (via Sports by Brooks) that the girl, Lauryn Edwards, was told that she could no longer play at the Mt Carmel Tennis Club in Sunbury because an opposing player complained that "the grunting had become too much." Lauryn's father explains his daughter's grunt and the response to it:
"It's pretty slight and now and again she hits it hard and makes a loud noise and that's it," he said.
"From just one comment, this has all blown up stupidly.
"There's no rule against it, so they've made a rule against it."
Some people may find it annoying, but the fact is that grunting has become a part of tennis, especially women's tennis. Sharapova's grunts have been estimated at about 100 decibels, and if her opponents can tolerate it, so can Lauryn's.
You said, “There are no more “gentlemen’s games” because there are no longer any gentlemen.”
There is still fencing. It still has gentlemen’s rules, but is slowly changing as well.
I took fencing in college. What a sport. I used to love "touching" the girls in my class on the chest.
I actually don't disagree with anything you have to say, makes sense actually; I was just way too amused be the potato gun reference to not make some comment.
There is an obscure rule in the game that applies. A player may not take any action intended to “bother” or lessen the quality of his or her opponent’s play.
It’s an interesting rule and when thought about carefully it is more than some stodgy silliness. The point of the game is to beat your opponent at his or her best. It is not to make the opponent less than his best.
Grunting can bother, and it can also improve one’s own play. It’s one of the many gray areas of tennis rules.
Yes it is! I couldn’t recall for the life of me. I was also debating on making a Mexican Inn reference instead, but I didn’t know how long they had been around.
I remember when SNL did a skit “At Home With Monica” when everything she did she let out a grunt, like opening a soda can.
In 1976, I used to go to Washington HS for Driver's ed. I had to transfer a bus right where Mexican Inn was. Stopped every time to get those cheese tacos.
Sigh. A long time ago.
Head games are a part of tennis. Tennis is one of the few sports that is more mental than physical, and if you can rattle your opponent, than you have a better chance to win. The point of McEnroe's rants weren't really to protest line calls, put to throw his opponent off his game. Nadal's painfully long time between points is designed to disrupt his opponent's rhythm.
I find the grunting annoying, and I agree that it should probably go away. But women's tennis has WAY bigger problems, like, for instance, the fact that most of the women on tour openly cheat by receiving coaching during the match. Everyone does it; everyone knows that everyone does it. The casual fan sits on the couch and watches the player and knows it's happening. Yet it still happens, and the WTA sits and does nothing.
After one of Sharapova’s matches I find myself looking to see if any piles have accumulated on the baseline.
What happened at the 16th hole?
Same thing. This 9-year-old ain't good enough to yell and grunt. Maybe once she gets as good as Sharapova or Seles.
Hey hey! My one public school classs was driver’s ed at GWHS too. Just a few years after you too, for the record.
Where did you go to High School? I went to Mt. Carmel.
Would have loved to have the Red Man concession at Daytona.
Good! Time to purge this grunting thing from the game.
At the race? There's no way.
Yup that’s what the commentators said. There are 200,000 seats in the stands and lots of room in the infield.
They’re wrong. There’s not 200,000 seats; there’s like 160,000. Daytona might get 250,000.
Even before Indy tore out most of the infield grandstands (when there was over 300,000 permanent seats), its attendance estimates were more like 400,000 and—one or twice—hit 500,000.
I’d even bet that Daytona doesn’t outdraw the Brickyard. Indy’s got 100,000 more seats. Daytona can’t make that up.
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