TENNIS: BEN ROTHENBERGon how two of the more vocal women's players have made their way to the decider in Melbourne

THE SOUND of women’s tennis has not changed, but the fury it can cause has intensified. The sport’s two most best-known screechers, Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova, are number three and number four in the rankings and are Australian Open finalists. As they won more matches, players below them complained about the noises they made.

The latest among these was Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland, the eighth-ranked player, who lost in three sets to Azarenka in a quarter-final on Tuesday.

After her exit from the tournament, Radwanska said she had become used to Azarenka’s shrill hoot from years of playing against her, but Sharapova’s scream was too much.

“About Maria, I mean, what can I say?” Radwanska said. “For sure that is pretty annoying and it’s just too loud.”

Radwanska went on to say she would support a suggested change to the WTA rules that would prohibit excessive grunting.

After her straight-sets quarter-final win over her countrywoman Ekaterina Makarova on Wednesday, Sharapova traded her on-court volume for a dry whisper when asked for her thoughts on Radwanska’s criticisms.

“Isn’t she back in Poland already?” Sharapova deadpanned. She added:

“You’ve watched me grow up, you’ve watched me play tennis. I’ve been the same over the course of my career. No one important enough has told me to change or do something different.”

Azarenka, a 22-year-old from Belarus whose screams were mimicked by the crowd in her second-round match, cited the early roots of her grunting when asked a similar question Tuesday.

“It’s the way I am, the way I play, the way I used to play when I was a kid,” she said. “As a child I was really weak, so I had to give that little extra power there. It kind of stuck with me, so that’s it.”

With grunting habits deeply engrained by the time a player reaches professional age, the most effective time to curtail the habit would seem to be at the junior level.

It is a theory supported by the WTA, which recently sent representatives to discuss curtailing grunting with junior players and coaches at Nick Bollettieri’s academy in Florida. Bollettieri’s former protegees Sharapova, Monica Seles and the young Portuguese Michelle Larcher de Brito are among the sport’s most notorious grunters.

“We are currently in the process of exploring how to reduce excessive grunting, especially for younger players just starting out, without adversely affecting players who have developed their game under the current training, rules and procedures,” the WTA said in a statement.

“We do believe that we need to address the concerns expressed by some fans and take a careful look at our rules and education policies.”

Although several players in the girls tournament in Melbourne made some noise when hitting the ball, no player shrieked at anywhere near the level of a Sharapova or an Azarenka.

Top-seeded Irina Khromacheva of Russia lacks volume in her grunt, but makes up for it in variety. Each exclamation is unique, like an auditory snowflake.

“Yeah, it changes,” Khromacheva (16) acknowledged after the match. “It depends on which mood I am in, actually.”

Anett Kontaveit, a 16-year-old Estonian with a chunky blond braid, was one of the more consistent grunters in the field. The third-seeded Kontaveit, who won the prestigious Orange Bowl tournament last year, punctuated her shots with a prolonged ‘HEH-awwwww!’

“When I started hitting the ball harder, it just came naturally,” Kontaveit said of her on-court refrain, which she does not employ on less exertive slices or drop shots.

Kontaveit’s coach, Marten Tamla, said her focus often wavered when she stopped grunting, a pattern he has pointed out to Kontaveit.

“I said, ‘Well, I think you play better when you actually do it, because you’re more focused at the moment and that shows that you are really in it’,” he said.

Khromacheva also said her coach had picked up on similar correlations between her grunting and her level of play.

“I don’t really when I play bad,” she said. “I don’t shout when I hit the ball, no.”

Despite the increasing outcry against excessive grunting, representatives from the International Tennis Federation, the US Tennis Association and Tennis Australia said grunting was not a high-level issue for them. A representative from the ITF said grunting was a problem only if it qualified as a hindrance under their rules, which state if “a player is hindered in playing the point by a deliberate act of the opponent(s), the player shall win the point.”

Grunting seemed to be a non-issue for 15-year-old Taylor Townsend, the highest-ranked US junior competing in Melbourne. Townsend, who upset Kontaveit in straight sets on Wednesday to reach the quarter-finals, said she had not been bothered by her grunts.

“Everyone has their thing,” Townsend said. “I mean, I breathe pretty loudly, so they could say that bugs them.”

She said a rule change would not be fair. “Some people do it for timing, rhythm, I don’t know why,” she said. “But they should be allowed to do it.”

Asked about the issue of grunting in women’s tennis, the retired five-time major champion Martina Hingis said in a news conference: “If you keep winning, you don’t think about it. The moment you’re losing, it’s probably more distracting.”

– (New York Times service)

Women's singles: the final

Rod Laver Arena tomorrow (8.30am) On TV: Eurosport and BBC 2

Yesterday's semi-final results

Men's singles: (2) Rafael Nadal (Spa) bt (3) Roger Federer (Swi) 6-7 (5-7) 6-2 7-6 (7-5) 6-4

Women's singles: (3) Victoria Azarenka (Blr) bt (11) Kim Clijsters (Bel) 6-4 1-6 6-3, (4) Maria Sharapova (Rus) bt (2) Petra Kvitova (Cze) 6-2 3-6 6-4.

Men's doubles: (1) Bob Bryan (USA) and Mike Bryan (USA) bt (7) Robert Lindstedt (Swe) and Horia Tecau (Rom) 4-6 6-3 7-6 (7-5), Leander Paes (Ind) and Radek Stepanek (Cze) bt (2) Max Mirnyi (Blr) and Daniel Nestor (Can) 2-6 6-4 6-4.

(3) Victoria Azarenka (Belarus)

v

(4) Maria Sharapova (Russia)

How they match up

By defeating champion Kim Clijsters in her semi-final yesterday Azarenka will lock horns with Sharapova for the seventh time in their careers. The last time the two met was in the quarter-finals of The Masters WTA event in Rome. That was played on clay in May of last year and Sharapova won when her opponent retired at 6-4, 3-0.

Of the six matches the two have played so far they have won three each with both recording wins on hard court. The only other time the players met last year was at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, which Azarenka won 6-1, 6-4 in the final.

Sharapova's three-set win over Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova gives her the opportunity to return to the world number one position if she beats Azarenka.