What's that racket on the courts? Sounds of success

VIRGINIA BEACH

"Eeeeehhhhhh, uhhhhh!

"Aye!"

"Eeeeek!"

If you're looking for a little "quiet, please" tennis these days, you might have trouble finding it. From the preps to the pros, sound abounds.

The USTA Girls 16s Clay Court Championships are being played at the Virginia Beach Tennis and Country Club for the 21st straight year. All week, the grunts and the squeaks that perpetuate just about every point of the grueling rallies on the tiresome clay produce noises unheard of when Julie Shiflet - now Julie Davidson -won the inaugural event in 1987.

"Maybe one or two out of a batch of girls was known to have a big grunt," Davidson said.

As for the "C'mon! Let's go! Right here!" self- motivating hip slappers that are just about as commonplace among the 194 girls blasting tennis balls on these grounds...

"I'd give myself a pumped-up fist after a good point, but I'd look toward the fence," Davidson said. "It was a little more internal back then."

The volume is up these days, and given the decibel level of top pros Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova, it's almost humorous to recall that in 1992, Monica Seles was criticized for grunting too loudly at Wimbledon. Seles' squeal is almost quiet compared with Sharapova, whose screeches have been likened to "a walrus giving birth."

"It relaxes me; it's my inner voice," said 15-year-old Valeriya Tatisheva, whose guttural sound hails from the diaphragm and like most, grows louder as the point or the match goes longer. "I played this girl two tournaments ago. We were in a tiebreaker in the last set. It sounded like her and I were screaming it got so loud."

When Tatisheva is noisy, her coach, Jon Taylor, knows she is playing her best. Taylor, traveling with her this week, said he works with his players on breathing out consciously, allowing the muscles to relax.

"With Valeriya, she holds her breath whenever she gets tight," he said. "Whenever she relaxes her muscles, her exhale is audible."

Still, Taylor admits some girls grunt just to make noise. "Unfortunately you know that's happening when they do it after they hit," he said.

Alexandra Ferrara giggles when her friends point to her as one of the louder juniors to play against. The New Jersey native creates a pitch so high, each breathless shriek sounds as if it could be her last gasp, yet she continues to fire away from the baseline.

"If I don't grunt, it means I'm not trying hard enough," she said.

Jasmine Minor's two-syllable grunt also is distinctive, and it's not unusual for her to pump herself up constantly. Five straight winners Tuesday afternoon led to five consecutive "C'mons!"

"Serena-esque" is how Minor describes herself. Minor wasn't taught to grunt; like many juniors, it comes naturally, and the fist-pumping keeps her energy high. "Usually, I'll turn to the fence," she said. "It's very easy to get into someone's head in this sport."

Minor's self-prodding is all positive. That is not the always the case among the players in the cutthroat world of junior tennis, where points, rankings and college scholarships can be on the line. Gone are the days when the prevalent question after an "out" call was "Are you sure?"

Ashleigh Antal and Jessica Podlofsky got heated during an exchange Tuesday when Antal insisted she won a point and didn't hear Podlofsky negating that until she called the score on the ensuing point.

"The ball was over a foot out," Antal said. "I wouldn't have said 'C'mon!' if I lost the point."

"I called the score," Podlofsky countered.

"I didn't hear it." Antal said.

"That's your problem," Podlofsky responded.

Sometimes, there's not an actual argument, just banter as in the case of Mary Anne MacFarlane versus Laura Wiley.

"How do you not put that away? It's the shortest ball in the history of the world," MacFarlane chided to herself at a volume enough for everyone on the surrounding courts to hear.

"You knew where she was going and you still missed it," followed up Wiley.

Whitney Wofford said cattiness adds to the mental game of tennis.

"They're saying something offensive to themselves, but it's directed at you," she said. "It's all mind games."

Virginia Beach pro Gary Garner has no problem with girls motivating themselves audibly but stresses that it should stay positive.

"I love them to say, 'C'mon on, right here!' Like (Rafael) Nadal. He never gives up on a point," Garner said. "But if they're looking over on the other side of the net when they're saying it, that's chump change."

Still, if you think it's loud on the beach courts this week, consider this: "When the guys play" on the juniors circuit, Wofford said, "they're a lot louder."

Staff writer Paul White contributed to this report.

Vicki L. Friedman, (757) 477-6874, VickiL120@cox.net