Why is grunting in tennis bad

They have also been shown to take about 30 milliseconds longer to react, by which point the ball moves another two feet. Most effective of all is the deafening grunt that conceals a crafty drop shot, leading opponents to anticipate a ferocious deep stroke. Mischievous players can manipulate these cues to their advantage and deliberately vary how they grunt on certain types of shots.

By the time their opponents realise it is a con, it will be much too late. Best of all, the science of grunting is that rare thing: an insight into elite sport which can also help overweight, middle-aged players get an edge on court.

For all the brutality of the noise, this is the beauty of the grunt. Text settings. Players who notice added power are probably using their grunting and moaning as a timing mechanism that makes them focus on taking the ball at the right time and exhaling at the right time as well. Some players struggle with timing everything up, and this is one way to get it aligned properly. There are studies on whether or not grunting enhances hitting performance and power.

Even players considered to be very quiet overall will occasionally grunt when they are hitting really hard shots. Listen closely enough, and Roger Federer will groan occasionally on serves, as well as overheads and outright winners off of the ground. When timed correctly, and a tennis player he makes close to perfect contact, the sound comes with the power. Hang around tennis players long enough, and nearly all of them are superstitious to some degree.

It would require complete reprogramming, and a few bad results would be instantly blamed on the change. Most people believe a player should continue to play the way they know-how.

Making drastic changes like this is only going to negatively affect a player. If moaning and grunting truly need to stop across tennis, it needs to start at a young age. Instructors need to insist that their players stop getting in the habit early on in their life. A player under the age of 10 can change how they play, and not let it affect their professional career. Speaking of training players to stay quieter, many have accused the Nick Bollettieri Academy of making grunting such a popular method of hitting the ball.

It is true that a lot of the notorious grunters on tour trained with him at one point in their life. Maybe it is a lack of stopping the habit when it is identified with young players or a calculated move to get a player a competitive advantage. To their credit, they have started to make some effort to reduce grunting and moaning.

Those who are against people making sounds when they hit the ball say that it gives a player an unfair advantage. One of the reasons is not being able to hear the ball come off of the strings. A lot of players will judge how balls are hit based on the sound they hear of the strings, but grunting can completely drown that out. The first pro player to point that out and argue against it was Martina Navratilova. She was getting very frustrated with players making sounds, she felt on purpose, to disguise shots just a little bit.

Some tennis players are more known for their grunting than others. Seles discussed her grunting, reports Tennis , admitting that some people loved it while others hated it.

She said she grunted since she was a girl as she put everything into each hit using big rackets. She says she grunted throughout her tennis development before the pros.

On the court, Verdasco was bleating like a goat—a confident goat. Focussing on the sounds of tennis can be a bleak exercise. The actors imagine themselves in a battle or war scenario and produce an aggressive roar. And a fear scream. Or they imagine themselves in varying levels of pain, including childbirth. Imagine being in a small room with nothing but a piano and actor after actor coming in and basically screaming at the top of their voice at you.

Verdasco was up two sets to one. The decisive game went to six deuces and three match points.