STANFORD, CALIF. — By no means is Victoria Azaren
ka the first over-the-top grunter the WTA Tour has ever seen. There’s a rich history of vociferous volleyers and bellowing baseliners that traces back to pioneer Monica Seles and threads through Maria Sharapova to Venus and Serena Williams and beyond. But the Belarusian’s Whippoorwill-like exclamations have been known to ruffle a few feathers here and there.
“I think it’s fine to grunt sometimes when you make an effort, but sometimes it’s just so loud,” said Marion Bartoli, who fell short in her title defense at the Bank of the West Classic with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 loss to Azarenka in the quarters on Friday afternoon. “It’s hard to focus on the other side of the net. I just need to forget about it, but it’s hard.”
“If you have a Sharapova-Azarenka match, you better come up with some earplugs,” she quipped. “I’m trying not to be annoyed, but I played her earlier this year [at Eastbourne] and in the first game everyone was laughing about it. It was quite disturbing. But I think she’s done that since her childhood. Every time she plays tennis, she’s doing it. It’s not something we can change, I guess, about her. As an opponent you just have to stay focused on your own game.”
Azarenka, who was playing her sixth quarterfinal of the year and has never lost to Bartoli in four meetings, was quick to defend herself.
“A lot of things can distract people,” said Azarenka, playfully mimicking Bartoli’s habit of shaking her racket up and down while awaiting serve. “But I don’t pay attention. That’s the way I play and I cannot change it. You can hear so many players, but you don’t pay that much attention because sometimes they grunt, sometimes they don’t. With me, it’s always like this. It’s the way I play since I was a kid. I was pretty weak and I needed that extra power.”
Azarenka said that loud grunting pales in comparison to the gamesmanship that sometimes occurs when players feign injury.
“There are some players who like to fake injuries and think they’re dying out there, then when the point is on they’re running for every ball,” she asserted. “It’s part of the game. You try to win however you can. If somebody wants to do something special or extra, they have their own choice.”
Bartoli may have been disturbed by the No. 18-ranked Azarenka’s shrieking, but the Frenchwoman wasn’t quite ready to dub her the tour’s loudest grunter. That distinction, she said, goes to Portuguese teen Michelle Larcher de Brito, who infamously caught flak for her vocal stylings from Aravane Rezai during a third-round clash at Roland Garros in ’09.
“Larcher de Brito was even louder,” said Bartoli. “I think that was really disturbing. Her grunting was continuing even when the ball was coming to your side. There was grunting until the ball was bouncing on your side. Victoria is not that bothering, but she’s loud.”
And where does Azarenka see herself among the rankings of all-time grunting greats?
“I think I’m top 10,” she laughed.
