Why The Heck Do Tennis Players Grunt?

Have you ever watched the tennis and thought to yourself, “why the heck are they grunting like that?”?

It’s something you’ll probably hear a lot during the Australian Open 2022.

Interestingly, grunting wasn’t always a part of the sport, and it’s thought that American player Jimmy Connors first brought in the grunt in the 1970s.

But there’s evidence to show that grunting can actually improve a players’ performance, and also be used as a sneaky little trick to throw off competition.

“One of the really important principles of movement in the body generally, is that when we want to get the maximum strength out of our muscles, we need whatever those muscles are attached to the bones to be very, very stable and strong, otherwise the muscle contraction doesn’t really work,” says Dr Cate Madill, Director of the Voice Research Laboratory at The University of Sydney.

“And one of the ways we do that – and we do this completely, unconsciously and automatically – is to hold our breath.”

When we hold our breath it creates a resistance in our throat, and that activates our back and abdominal muscles.

So when a player hits the ball really hard, they’re holding their breath to gain strength. And once they hit the ball that air gets released, sometimes as a grunt.

“Many of them now, as they release the air from between their vocal cords, they make a little sound just like we do when we do a really loud cough. So that’s one reason why we would hear this grunting or vocalising,” explains Dr Madill.

When tennis players grunt it can even make their hits more powerful too.

Studies have found that players who grunt when they hit the ball after it’s bounced have hits 3.8 per cent faster than players who return the ball silently.

When it comes to serving, players who grunt can serve 4.9% faster than players who don’t.

The tennis grunt can also improve rhythm and breathing. Psychologists have noted that it can improve a player’s confidence, which can help them lift their game even higher.

It can also be distracting, and that can be used as a tactic against an opponent.

If a grunt is loud, it can mask the sound of the ball hitting the racket. That’s an important sound for players because it’s what they use to figure out how hard the ball has been hit, and what direction it’s heading.

Players are 3 to 4 per cent less accurate at picking where the ball is heading, and at what speed, when it’s masked by a loud grunt.

Grunts can also catch an opponent off guard, as a super loud grunt often signifies a powerful hit, not a soft tap that just makes it over the net. So it has the potential to completely throw off the other player.

Maria Sharapova is a tennis player known for her iconic grunt.

Some of her grunts have exceeded 100 decibels, which some sports journalists reckon could make her the loudest tennis grunter of all time.

Another reason why we’re seeing the grunt appear more and more is because as younger players look up to current champs and want to be just like them.

If their hero grunts then they’re more than likely to adopt one into their tennis technique too.

Love it or loath it, we’re sure to be hearing a lot of grunts at the Australian Open, and it’s safe to say we’re going to be hearing it for many years to come.