One hell of a racket

She is the most exciting new talent at Wimbledon this year. But now Maria Sharapova is facing a fresh challenge - she has been told by tennis officials to tone down her grunting.

The noise made by the 17-yearold Russian is not just distracting her opponents, it is even audible to players on other courts.

Dubbed the Queen of the Screams, the prodigy has become progressively louder as she powers her way through the championships.

Now an Evening Standard test has uncovered just how noisy she is.

Using a special sound meter we monitored the 13th seed during her quarter-final victory against 11th seed Ai Sugiyama of Japan.

And we discovered that at its worst, her grunting hit 86.3 decibels - the same as standing beside a high-revving motorcycle, or the screech from a gibbon in the zoo.

It is a racket you are more likely to hear at a rock concert or in a noisy bar than at the All England Club - in fact, it comes close to the level at which doctors warn the human ear can be damaged.

The noise has already earned her a warning from tennis bosses, who fear it is distracting her opponents. A Wimbledon spokesman said: "There is no written rule about grunting.

"But the club would intervene if it was felt the noise was liable to give the player an advantage over their opponent, or to the extent that it was distracting other players."

Sharapova is hardly alone in grunting. Our survey of Wimbledon players found she was run a close second by Serena Williams, the defending champion, who hits 77.6 decibels.

Unexpectedly, a relatively unknown British player, 20-year-old Anne Keothavong, was next with a loudest grunt of 72.

And Croatian Karolina Sprem, 19, managed 68.3. Tim Henman managed a paltry 61.6 decibels - which may explain in part why he crashed out of Wimbledon yesterday in a straight-sets defeat to Mario Ancic of Croatia.

The grunting debate divides the tennis world. Jeremy Cross, tennis coach at Loughborough University in Leicestershire, said: "Grunting is a useful way of exhaling and when we exhale we relax our muscles."

But sports psychologist Dr Matthew Pain said it did not help the players perform any better. "There is no physiological basis for it. In many cases it could be that the player is using it to gain advantage."

And even at 86.3 decibels, Sharapova has some way to go to beat the all-time record holder: former Wimbledon champion Monica Seles is grunter extraordinaire, hitting 93.2 decibels 11 years ago.

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