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 ...
It’s not grunting. It’s screaming. And, it’s horrible.
Already a thread
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1235991/posts?page=1
What is a “real” sport...bass fishing?
LOL What do you consider a real sport?
I’m no Chris Evert, but I think it’s shameful. Just like it was shameful that John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors were allowed to whine like women on Centre Court—women shouldn’t grunt like pigs there, either.
lol - Monica Seles posts here and her screen-name is sam_whiskey.
Why is that woman’s head on Charles Barkley’s body?
she can grunt all she wants mmmmmmmmm lol
I caught the tail end of a radio report and the annoucer named one offender as being from Portugal or at least, Portuguese. I didn’t catch her name.
LOL
A lot of “extra stuff” that many professional atheletes do ~ trash talking, signature celebrations, hopping around like a bunch of mind-numbed idiots ~ has little or nothing to do with performance and more to do with self-promotion and one’s ability to score revenue.
Being known as “the chic who grunts really loud” when she puts one away is possibly worth about 50 to 100 K on the back end of a shoe or apparrel deal.
Okay, all I gotta say is wow!
REALLY don’t know What you are talking about.
I grew up in Fort Lauderdale where Chris practiced EVERY day at Holiday Park and every time I talked to her and her dad .. They were the best folks I have ever met.
SHUT YOUR MOUTH!
This one screams like a Banshee. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVfCcBzMeA0&feature=related
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Hear Ye!
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45 posted on Wednesday, July 01, 2009 12:41:31 PM by Jim Robinson (Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jimrobfr)
I’ve never understood how someone moving up in the stands or maybe a cell phone ringing was a major distraction to the players, but a person on the other side of the court screaming wasn’t. Chris is right.
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