Monica Seles & The Tennis Grunt

00:00:22 Speaker 1: Tennis isn't one of the most watched sports in the United States, but it is around the rest of the world. The sport's four annual major championships, also called Grand Slams, the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open average combined four hundred million viewers every year. For reference, the twenty twenty four Super Bowl had one hundred and twenty three million viewers in the United States, which made it the country's most watched TV program ever. And yes, I know that comparing one country's viewership for a single event to the global total for four isn't exactly fair. I'm just illustrating the point that a lot of people do watch tennis. In fact, the Women's Tennis Association or WTA, broke its all time viewership record last year with a global audience surpassing one billion people. And a big reason for the draw is that tennis tends to always be a somewhat popular sport in most countries. It's never necessarily the most watched sport, but it's always floating somewhere in the top ten, and that adds up. Tennis is also esthetically pleasing to watch, and mostly an individual sport, which makes it highly marketable and conducive to creating global stars like Roger Federer, one of the ten richest athletes of all time, Serena Williams, the richest female athlete of all time and second most followed female athlete on Instagram, Raphael and at All, Maria Sharapova, Billy gen King, Pete Sampras, Novak Djokovic, and countless. Other high level tennis matches can be things of beauty, like a championship match at Wimbledon, watching two athletes separated by a net their feet dancing on the pristine grass court, smashing the ball back and forth with powerful forehands, delicate slices and devastating dropshots. The onlookers watching the action in silence, their heads moving left right, left, tracking the fuzzy yellow sphere until the point is over. Then they clap and eventually a return to silence, making way for the sound of the competitors tennis rackets hitting the I'm sorry, what was that. Oh yes, the grunt aka the biggest menace in tennis. Unless you're a big believer in pickleball, I guess it's impossible to talk about sounds in tennis. Without diving into the details behind one of its most controversial and divisive topics, let alone sounds. I'm Will Gatchel. You're listening to Sports Dot MP three. In today's episode, will explore how Monica sell Us, perhaps tennis's greatest prodigy, used grunting to alter the sport forever. But I'm getting way ahead of myself. First, we have to talk about the pioneer of the tennis grunt, a player named Victoria Heineke, nicknamed and I swear I'm not making this up, the grunter. Victoria Heineke is now a retired tech support consultant living in Colorado Springs at least as of twenty eleven, but all the way back in nineteen fifty seven, her name was Vicky Palmer when she appeared in Sports Illustrated magazine, which wrote, the twelve year old mite, who stands not quite five feet tall, scampered off with three trophies in the Arizona Tennis Open end quote. Palmer went on to become the USA Junior Champion in both nineteen sixty one and nineteen sixty two. That same year, she won a major upset over Karen Haunts Susman earning the following mention in another Sports Illustrated piece. A number of dramatic upsets, including Wimbledon champion Karen Haunt Susman by seventeen year old Vicky Palmer, indelicately named the Grunter end quote. Palmer drew further national acclaim by defeating Billy Jen Moffatt soon to be Billy Jean King, who had become one of the best female players ever only a year later. Like she would get her name changed a year later, she wouldn't just become the best player a year later. And then, at eighteen years old, Palmer skipped Wimbledon, enrolled at the University of Arizona, got married, had her first kid, and retired from competitive tennis forever. Her influence on the sport, though, was far from over. As alluded to, Palmer grunted when she hit the ball, and she'd been doing it ever since her father first taught her tennis at the age of four and a half. The grunting wasn't something she was instructed to do. It actually just came as a natural way to breathe as she hit the ball. Here's the grunt of David Ferrer, the modern player Vicky says most closely mimics what her grunt sounded like. Vicky's opponents didn't find her grunting to be very distracting or worthy of complaint, but getting her to stop grunting probably would have helped their odds of defeating the heavy hitting prodigy. You see, even though she didn't know it at the time, Vicky's grunts were actually indeed helping her hit harder. And I'm not making this up. It's backed by modern science. Without going to Bill nyonyall grunting while hitting a ten generates more force by helping your muscles contract just a bit more than usual while also regulating your breathing. One study found that highly skilled university tennis players hit with a three point eight percent increase in groundstroke hitting velocity and a four point nine enhancement in serving velocity when they grunted versus not. The grunter had unknowingly tapped into that extra source of hitting power years before others began to adopt it, and when grunting did finally begin to catch on, a different teen prodigy would take up the mantle, making the grunt not just one of her defining characteristics but one of her best tools on the court. Born in Yugoslavia in nineteen seventy three, Monica Cellus took up tennis at a young age and was trained by her father, just like the Grunter, minus the Yugoslavia part. Under her father's training, she developed an iconic two handed style of play for both four hands and backhands, which she used to win numerous tournaments, eventually catching the eye of tennis coach Nick Balatieri. Cellis soon moved to the US to enroll in his creatively named Nick Bollatieri Tennis Academy, and on February thirteenth, nineteen eighty nine, at just fifteen years old, she would go pro and win a title only a few months later by beating Pastor Prime but still a tennis legend, Chris Evert in the final. Later that same year, Celis would make it to the semi finals of the French Open, one of those four majors I referenced earlier. She would lose that match to the world's number one ranked player at the time, Germany's Stephanie Groff. And yes, many people call her Stephian, but she prefers to go by Stephanie, So yeah, there you go? Where was I? Ah? Yes, Germany's Stephanie Groff, who was only one year removed from winning the tennis Golden Slam, meaning she had won all four major Grand Slam titles and an Olympic gold the year before. At the end of her first year as a professional, Cellis finished the tour ranked number six, not bad for a teenager, but Celis wasn't just any teenager, and she was gunning for Stephanie groff spot as the world number one. The next year saw Groff enter the nineteen to ninety French Open Singles tournament as the number one seed. Monica Cellis entered as the two seed, already four spots higher than where she had started the year. Sellis had actually beaten Groff in a Cup final less than a month prior, snapping the German sixty six game winning streak, and of course the two were destined to face off again in the French Open finals, and it ended with the same result, a Cellus victory, making her the youngest ever French Open singles champion at the age of sixteen years and six months, which still stands to this Deby she would win a few other tournaments that year, but cooled off towards the end of it, finishing as the world number two, just a single spot behind Grof, and Celis was still just getting started. The following two years would see her reach peaks that few could have ever predicted and few or still have ever reached. But first I have to talk about Celis's grunt, which Serena Williams credited as the inspiration for her own a grunt that was one of the many reasons Celis was so damn good. And you know, I can't talk about her grunt without playing it, so be warned. It's a bit louder than some of the others. Monica Sellus was a trailblazer for tennis power. She was extremely aggressive, hitting returns and placing shots, often trying to win a point within the first few hits instead of playing longer, more prolonged rallies, which a lot of people opted to do at the time, and her loud, powerful, aggressive grunting style perfectly matched that style of play. The grunts helped sell Us hit that ball really hard, just like they did for Vicky Palmer, but they did a lot more than that too. Nick Bollatieri, the coach who had trained. Sell Us had a lot of other disciples, including legendary men's player Andre Agassi, and many of those disciples were gaining increasing attention for their louder and louder grunts. Some opponents and media members were complaining about the distracting nature of these loud grunts, and they did have a pretty good point. Studies have shown that another benefit for grunters is that their grunts slowed down the reaction times of their opponents. According to some of Cellis's opponents, the grunting techniques and gamesmanship didn't end there. Some players actually complained that Celis was also changing the timing and volume of her grunts during games. What does that mean if she was a grunting magician or mad scientist of sorts. Sometimes Celis would grunt really loudly as she hit the ball, signaling to her opponent that the ball was hit pretty hard. But Celis would actually hit the ball really softly, throwing off her opponent with her extremely loud grunt, and she'd switch things up, messing with her opponents timing by grunting half a second after or before she hit the ball, which is definitely distracting if you're trying to time your hits based on when you think the person hit the ball. It's safe to say that most people weren't the biggest fans of Cells's grunting as she rose up the tennis rankings, and that controversy surrounding this would grow just bigger from nineteen ninety one to nineteen ninety three, when she went on one of the greatest tournament runs in tennis history. Cellis started off nineteen ninety one ranked as the world number two, and she hit the ground running, winning the Australian Open, her second ever Grand Slam in January of that year. She would then replace Groff as the world number one by March and go on to defend her French Open title with another win. Cellis would then miss out on competing at Wimbledon due to shin splints, but return in time to win the US Open. She would then go on the following year to defend all three of her major titles, the Australian Open, French Open, and US Open, though she would lose her first ever Wimbledon final to Stephanie Groff that year. In nineteen ninety two, in a rather odd manner, she'd lose it quietly. Cels's Wimbledon was marred with controversy around her grunts. The London tabloids were publishing grunto meters that mocked Sels's loud shrieks throughout the tournament. Martina Navra Talova, a staunch anti grunter, complained to the umpire about Sels's grunts in their semi final match, and despite the resulting fever pitch of pressure and controversy around those grunts, the teenager still made it to the finals, and it was there that she would make the stunning decision to play the finals against her bitter rival without grunting. Cells entered those finals as the best women's tennis player, having crushed Groff on a clay court in the French Open finals just earlier that year, but this Wimbledon finals was different. Stephanie Groff was the one to do the crushing, this time defeating an eerily quiet Cellus on the grass court, and it was clear to anyone watching that Cellis wasn't playing at her normal levels. She actually wrote in her autobiography about the choice to not grunt, saying that it was one of the only things in her life that she regrets. I'm just going to reiterate here that Cellis wasn't even twenty years old at the time, and yes, she was a loud, masterful grunter, but she somewhat unfairly became the symbol of the grunting controversy itself, facing way more backlash from fans in the media like about grunting compared to male stars like Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe and fellow Nick Bollatieri Tennis Academy disciple Andrea Agassi, all of whom also popularized and weaponized the grunt. But female athletes spacing excessive backlash compared to their male counterparts isn't necessarily anything new for sports or a lot of other things too, and Cellis didn't stay silent for long. Soon after the Wimbledon finals loss, she added the grunt back into her repertoire, and she returned right back to form, winning the US Open that year with grunts galore. Celis then started nineteen ninety three the following year in peak shape, winning the Australian Open by defeating Stephanie Groff, giving Cellas a three to one record versus her German rival in Grand Slam finals, Monica Sels's run from January nineteen ninety one to February of nineteen ninety three was unprecedented. She had won twenty two titles, seven Grand Slams of the eight she had competed in, and reached the finals in thirty three of the thirty four tournaments. She had entered undoubtedly one of the greatest tennis runs of all time, without even factoring in the high quality competition she was facing and the fact Celus was still yet to reach her athletic prime. And that's where this story takes a tragic, heartbreaking turn. On April twentieth, nineteen ninety three, Celis was playing a match in Hamburg, Germany, against Magdalena Moliva. During a break between games, while Celis was still sitting on her bench, a German man obsessed with Stephanie Groff, ran under the court and stabbed Celis in the back with a knife. The man was immediately subdued and Celis was rushed to the hospital to treat the wound. She would recover from the physical injuries after several weeks, but it would be more than two years before she would return to the sport. The attacker, intending to injure cell Us so that Groff could return to her number one ranking, was found by the German courts to be psychologically abnormal and sentenced to two years probation and psychological treatment. Celis felt trade by the German legal system's leniency towards her attacker and would never play in the country again. To state the obvious, Cellus was clearly affected by the traumatic experience, as we all would be. There were calls for Celis's number one ranking to be frozen or kept as is while she recovered from her physical and mental injuries, which you'd think is pretty sensible, but the Women's Tennis Association instead decided to let the top players vote on the decision of whether to preserve Celus's ranking or not, because what's a better group to make a decision about the world number one than numbers two through twenty. It's not like they would have an incentive to not freeze the ranking or something. Yet sixteen of the top seventeen players who voted decided not to freeze her ranking. Firstly, shout out to Gabriellas Sabatini for abstaining out of respect for Celis. Secondly, it's hard to blame or judge the others top athletes from wanting a chance at the number one spot. And lastly, what makes this entire incident all the more tragic is that the horrible stabbing largely accomplished what its perpetrator intended. Stephanie Groff would reclaim the number one ranking soon after, and eventually under her career as one of the greatest of all time with twenty two Grand Slam singles titles. Cellis did eventually return to the tour in August of nineteen ninety five, a little over two years after the incident, and thanks to the Woman's Tennis Association's president at the time, Martina Navra Talovo, the same opponent who had complained about Cels's grunting to an umpire in the nineteen ninety two Wimbledon semi finals, Cellis returned to the sport as the joint number one alongside who else but Stephanie Groff. And it's fair to say that Celis wasn't the same player after the incident, but there were still flashes of her brilliance. She won her first tournament back, the Canadian Open, but lost to Groff in the US Open finals. That year. Cellis would start off nineteen ninety six, her second year back, winning the Australian Open, which would be the last ever Grand Slam title of her career. Celis would play for another decade before ultimately retiring from professional tennis on February fourteenth, two thousand and eight. She may not have won another Grand Slam title in that time, but Celis did compete, and she may not have been as dominant as her younger self, but she was still one of the greatest competitors the sport has ever known. The mere fact Cellis returned to the sport after such a devastating incident reveals what makes her so special. Her determination and competitiveness to keep going. There's a reason other tennis legends and icons speak about her with such admiration and awe. When you look at her career, it's also hard to argue that she wasn't on a trajectory never before seen. She had already won eight Grand Slam titles as a nineteen year old, and that was eight wins out of nine finals appearances. She also remains the only woman to simultaneously hold the Australian and French Open titles for three years in a row, and She wasn't doing it in an era lacking for talent. She was doing all this by destroying some of the greatest legends in tennis history. And she did it all while grunting. There are always what ifs in sports. What if Lambias's life wasn't tragically lost before he had ever stepped foot on an NBA court. What if drew Bledsoe never got injured, giving Tom Brady a chance to shine. Sports and what IFFs go together. They describe a tantalizing world of potential superstars, different dynasties, and altered histories. Underlying all of these possibility are assumptions or leaps of faith. When we talk about Lambias, there's an assumption that he had the talent and ability to rival Michael Jordan, and a leap of faith that he would have put it all together and reached that level. And that's not to disparage him, it's just to say that we'll never know, one way or another. That's part of why what ifs are so alluring. They don't need proof or evidence to exist. But when you talk about the what if for Monica sell Us, as in what if she had never been stabbed? Well, that's an entirely different type of question because there isn't an underlying assumption or lack of proof. She probably would have been the greatest women's tennis player of all time. Monica Sells was on a trajectory to win an uncountable number of trophies and honors, and she was pretty consistently beating Stephanie Groff, whom many considered the greatest ever, at least until Samana Williams came along, and numerous other amazing players, all before turning twenty years old. And that's not just my opinion, it's shared by a few other people who are much better at tennis than I am, though I do have a wicked backhand slice. Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, and countless other tennis greats, many of whom she played against, agree about the Sellis stuff not my backhand slice, but that's just because they haven't seen it. Cellus was an inspiration for the next generation of great players that came after her, including Venus Williams, Serena Williams, and the player that became the new symbol of tennis grunting controversy, Maria Sharapova. The legacy of Monica Celis will forever be tied to the tennis grunt, but she's too great a champion, role model, and competitor to be defined by it. After her retirement, Celis was asked if she felt burdened by being the one to introduce grunting to the sport of tennis withholding my personally is about the disrespectfulness of the question all instead, just leave you with her response, I can only speak for myself. In my case, it was a natural breathing. If you look back at tapes as a nine year old girl, I was doing the exact same thing. I think it's unfortunate because men grunted many times before you had Jimmy Connors and nobody said a single word about it. So I think females a lot of people, it's hard to accept when they're strong out there. For me, it was part of how I played, same way as I played two hands on both sides. My goal when I stepped out there on the court was just to crush that ball in whatever best form I could do that, And that was the sound that came out when I crushed the ball. The sound that came out when I crushed the ball. Now, that's a mic drop and this is the end of today's episode of Sports Dot MP three. Thank you all for listening. Please make sure to follow the podcast if you're not already on whatever platform you're currently listening to this on, and leave a review too if you enjoy it. They really do help out. I'd like to give a quick shout out to my personal favorite tennis player of all time, Raphael and Nadal, the clay court goat. And with that out of the way, I'll leave you with the out your music. Thank you all again for listening. Now I'll be back in two weeks with another episode of Sports Dot MP three. Peace.