Wimbledon just saw one of its past champions eliminated in Round 2. Maria Sharapova the belle of world tennis was defeated by the equally stunning Argentinian beauty Gisele Dulko, or better known as Fernando Gonzalez's girlfriend.
There was a lot of a hype over the screaming of Sharapova in recent times. The great Martina Navratilova equates the shrieking in women's tennis to cheating of sorts. I suppose what she meant was that it kinda disrupts the opponents' attention everytime the ball was struck on the other side.
To get an idea of how loud Sharapova's shrieking is,her loudest to date is 71.5dB, almost the level of a power drill in close quarters, and that measurement by golly... was from a distance of 30m. So you could kind of imagine how the opponent will have heard it.... freaking LOUD... and for a torturous 2 hours.
Well, I haven't really been quite disturbed by Sharpova's screaming until this hooha occured, and in a way, it made many more sensitive viewers like myself feel slightly irritated now even when watching her on TV. The match commentators sounded out that the crowd probably got behind Gisele Dulko just because of the incessant shrieking of Maria.
Like it or not, Maria is not the only one. The Williams sisters and many of the other girls in tennis have an overwhelming scream. The question is should the tennis federation ban shouting or screaming and list it as a disruptive force to fairplay?
Fact is, tennis is a pretty demanding sport. And it certainly requires some strength to hit the ball aggressively, lest to say the amount of endurance and energy required in a 2 hour period of furious hitting and heart-pumping runs. Breathing out after every strike is but one of the techniques that is being emphasized in the game by the maestros of the sport. Somehow, it has gotten louder and has translated into screaming.
In a way, letting out a sound also works on the mental aspect. Shouting and being loud has always boosted the ego of the competitor and intimidates the opponent to a certain extent. A quick look at the All Blacks who do the Haka war dance before every rugby test match. The dance which consists of shouting and making big sounds intimidates and boosts the team's self confidence.
In tennis, letting out a sound sometimes help the player focus on the ball striking, knowing that the right breathing technique is being used. The world number one Rafa Nadal grunts louder at every crucial point he needs to win. It pushes him on and eggs him on to fight harder. Without the grunting, we could possibly see a lesser Rafa Nadal. Maybe his technique will remain, but the fighting spirit coupled with the miraculous comebacks and hard earned rallys might not be so prominent in his game anymore. Those characteristics in itself define Rafa.
So if you ask me, I will prefer "No shouting please" in an ideal world. But I seriously doubt those who think that the ideal scenario will happen really understand how competitive tennis is. It is a battle out there on the court, it is sweat and blood (though not literally)... you could liken it to a duel between two warriors or two lionesses for that matter. The competive world tour is tough mentally and physically. And I say tennis less the passion and emotion being put into it would just be another charity match played by retired tennis greats.
For all due respect to the amount of hours and sacrifices that these professionals put behind their practices and the fine honing of their skills, we shouldn't really harp on issues such as these and just move on to enjoy great tennis being played out. Afterall, the real tennis nut knows that the tennis is the most important thing in the tennis match.
