Tennis and the question of silence

Wimbledon's just finished. I watched it in passing until the final rounds when the British sporting public's desire for triumph began to reach new heights as Andy Murray looked like he might actually win the big gold pot. As you probably know, he did, and good for him. My natural British sporting bias made me cheer for Djokovic but I didn't really care and I was actually pretty happy for him in the end. 'Warrior' is one of those over used words in a sporting context but god, you could not fail to be impressed by his sheer desire to win coupled with his astonishing athletic ability. There will be hundreds of articles about the 'wait' being over (yes yes I know all about the Virginia Wade story) and how he now has a chance to become the world's best but I am more interested in something quite removed from Murray and his triumph. Something that I've often wondered about. Why do the crowd at a tennis match have to remain silent?

You tend to take these things for granted. People go bat shit crazy at football, rugby etc. People mix levels of boisterous activity with a more tranquil feel at games like cricket and baseball and then all of a sudden the crowd are required to be silent at snooker and tennis events. Snooker seems more obvious as there are very rare levels of noise during the game itself from the players involved, but tennis is just a noisier game in general (and getting noisier, anyone see Sharapova's 2nd round match against Larcher de Brito, Jesus wept).

Coming off watching a huge amount of NBA playoff games, I found it increasingly strange that the audience had to be quiet when you have people screaming, shouting, booing and waving those crazy balloon type things when a player is trying to make a free throw. It's similar to football when there's a penalty awarded. In a pressurised moment when a player has time to think and analyse what's going on, instead of just acting on instinct, the crowd do whatever they want which often involves trying to distract the player. Same as a hitter trying to concentrate on hitting a 90mph fastball in baseball. The crowd are not told to be quiet. Why are tennis players afforded such luxuries?

On first glance it seems like history, tradition and class have a lot to do with it. From a casual glance of the history of tennis Wikipedia page it seems the game was enjoyed by royalty, nobility, the military, and even the Bard himself, William Shakespeare, was a fan. The history of the game is rooted in upper class society. Shouting and screaming would have been frowned upon by those taking part in, and watching, tennis matches since the game was invented way back in the 12th century. Things have changed of course, but tradition has a way of sticking around. It may not be as elitist and as expensive to take up as golf but Wimbledon is attended every year by members of the Royal Family. Put it this way, the Queen does not go to Wembley for the FA Cup Final. A different type of person attends a tennis match than a football game and they are expected to behave in a slightly more reserved and controlled way.

So there's the class, etiquette and tradition factors which seem relatively obvious after some cursory research. But there seems to be other more technical points involved. The obvious one is that players need the silence to concentrate, but I don't think this holds much weight when you compare what players have to contend with in other sports. A more interesting reason could be to do with the importance for players to hear the ball as it connects with their opponents racket? Could this in some way affect how they move or set up for their next shot? Possibly, I haven't played the game enough to be able to speculate. This does, however, seem like the only obvious difference between tennis and other sports where a high level of concentration is required in particularly high pressurised moments.

And then I think about golf. It's an outdoor sport where the audience don't have to remain silent throughout a player's full round. They are, however, required to keep quiet at certain moments. Exactly like tennis. The players often get cranky when spectators make noise at inopportune moments and it is also a solo sport. Tennis players and golfers are out there on their own with no one else to get annoyed with except for the spectators and occasionally their opponent. Tennis and golf are also sports which require pin point accuracy and precision when it comes to striking a small ball with a larger object and obviously, they are both sports that attract (and I'm generalizing of course) a more upper to middle class clientele who might frown upon boorish or loutish behaviour.

So there are multiple reasons it seems. And after careful consideration, I don't buy any of them. Tennis and golf are two sports where the elite players are rewarded with some of the largest pay cheques in all of sports. Andy Murray got £1.6m for winning Wimbledon. Justin Rose got $1.44 for winning the US Open. That's huge money in any sport. Plenty of other players in all other sports deal with and overcome distraction, abuse, and general mania from fans. Tennis players should be no different. If anything, constantly requesting the fans to be silent makes it more likely that a player really will be distracted by a random scream or shout that they wouldn't even notice if there was general crowd noise. And if there was a constant level of noise we wouldn't have to hear the idiots who scream 'I love you Andy" and think they are hysterical. So come on tennis players, lighten up and deal with the odd bit of noise from people who adore you and pay huge sums of money to cheer you on.

Thought of the day - If you work in Boots and a perfectly nice person asks you where a certain type of deodorant is, wait till said person is out of earshot before you tell your co-worker that the deodorant in question is 'rotten'.