"YES! YES! YES YES!!!"
Posted on 07/01/2009 6:57:02 PM PDT by Helotes
SYDNEY -- Tennis great Chris Evert has joined the chorus of complaints about the noise level in women's tennis, saying the "grunting" was getting out of hand. Evert stopped short of joining former rival Martina Navratilova in labelling the practice as cheating, but agreed it had reached unacceptable levels. Evert: "Grunting is one thing but the shrill sound that you hear with players nowadays, and especially they get louder when they hit a winner, that's the thing that I observe as a player," the former world No. 1 told reporters in Sydney on Monday. "It comes before they hit the shot. That's the first thing you hear and you are kind of like thrown off guard as a player and then before you know the ball gets past you." Evert is visiting Sydney with her husband Greg Norman, who announced he would play in the Australian Open golf championship for the next three years. "It is distracting when you are hearing this and I think the grunts are getting louder and more shrill now with the current players," she said. "The next time you watch say a Maria Sharapova -- the grunting is consistent but all of a sudden when she has a set up to hit a winner. "I don't understand, they say you've got to blow air out when you hit the ball. "Steffi Graf hit the ball a ton and she didn't grunt. There were a lot of players, hard-hitting players, and you never heard a peep out of them. "I don't understand the philosophy of it."
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.espn.go.com ...
Okay... I’m sure this is a borderline pic violation.
:-)
I had an apartment whose balcony faced some private tennis courts. It was right outside my window - a one bdrm apartment. And pretty damned annoying.
When I heard the “screamers”, I’d start moaning back in nice mocking way. Most didn’t continue very long in between my moaning and laughing. ;-)
Finally someone else is saying it. I completely quit watching women’s tennis because it bordered on gross.
Can someone help us with a pic of an offender??
Dear Chris Evert,
Your whoring and homewrecking has gotten out of hand.
So shut your piehole.
Pictures of these “grunters” pls. and they’d better be Russian.
Or at least turned off the sound
Women’s grunting kinda turns me on ...
Monica Sellars was quite the grunter too. She had a 2 part grunt with the crescendo moan uptick at the end of each hit. Rather annoying just like a snore that keeps the spouse up at night.
We should have called her ‘MOAN’ica!
Tennis isn’t even a real sport they should be able to grunt or do whatever they want.
I am being hit by a racket and groaning a lot.
The “grunt” in my household is followed by the sound of the “click” as I switch over to yet another rerun of Dangerous Catch. Tennis needs to get a grip.
In tennis, the women are now far outdoing the men in the merchandising deals. The grunting is simply a cheap way to bring attention to their names and the products their paid to wear and endorse. Many of the Russian and eastern european girls are doing it.
I agree. Perhaps its one reason that the tennis ratings have not quite equalled what they were back in the 80’s with McEnroe, Connors, Borg, Evert and Navratalova.
Some of the grunting sounds as if it should be followed by a flushing sound.
OMG, Chris is so right. The Williams sisters have taken the grunting to a ridiculous level. Grunting should bring an automatic fault.
You mean Monica Seles, the original grunter? Or Chris Evert?
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