[4] Monica Seles, Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe are generally considered to be the "grunt creators" in the women's and men's games, respectively.
[5][6][7] Examples of contemporary tennis players who grunt are Serena Williams, Venus Williams,[8] Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka,[9][10] Aryna Sabalenka,[11] Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, Dominic Thiem, David Ferrer,[12][13] and Gustavo Kuerten.
[8] In the 2009 French Open, Aravane Rezaï complained to the umpire about Michelle Larcher de Brito's "shrieking", which led to a Grand Slam supervisor being brought to the court.
Michelle Larcher de Brito, who had a reported decibel reading of 109, said: "If people don't like my grunting, they can always leave".
[20] Some players and commentators have noted the connection with pro tennis trainer Nick Bollettieri, who has personally trained the majority of the controversially loud "grunters" including Larcher de Brito, Seles, Sharapova, Agassi, and the Williams sisters, leading to repeated accusations that he has been deliberately teaching grunting as a novel tactic in order to give his latest generation of students an edge in competitive play.
I think that if you look at other sports, weightlifting or doing squats or a golfer when he executes the shot or a hockey player, the exhaling is a release of energy in a constructive way".
One year later, a division of Bollettieri's academy released a document calling grunting "unsportsmanlike" and acknowledging that it obscures the sound of string impact (as noted by Navratilova), resulting in "an increase in an opponent's decision error, and a slower response time".