Girlie Grunts

I don’t normally watch the girlies at Wimbledon. Mostly it’s the grunting and the squealing that puts me off. It just seems very unnecessary. Also most games seem to be over very quickly, with the winner winning very easily…well, one would assume it was an easy win with 6-1 6-2.

I watched the semi final between Serena Williams and Elena Dementieva. My husband has taken a liking for the other Russian…Safina, so I was killing time waiting for that game to begin.

I suppose if you watch something long enough you are bound to get involved. As much as admire the William’s sisters, I like it when they get beat. And it looked like Serena was getting beat at one stage.

There was one point in the match where the grunting and squealing transformed into something else. Whereas it had just been irritable background noise, in one game where Serena was serving and it was a deuce battle, the grunting almost became snarls and hisses. If you could have translated the grunts I really think a dialogue was going on between them across the net as the ball thundered past.

“I’ll be blowed if you are going to take this point off me!”

“You try and take this point and I will scratch your eyes out!”

“This is my game, get your stinking paws off it!”

“Take that (whack) and that (whack) and that (whack) and there’s more where they came from!”

“Over my dead body!”

I don’t think I have ever heard anything so intimidating. For that single game there was so much ferocity in the grunts and the whacks. It was scary. If I had have been on the receiving end…I would have run away. I would not have snarled back!

I was thinking about the verse in Romans 8:26 “but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”

When I groan it tends to be pitiful stuff. Things are going wrong. I am on the brink of tears. I am feeling frustrated. It’s like I am on the verge of some kind of breakdown.

Imagine then if the groans of the Holy Spirit are like those girlie groans in the tennis match, those really intimidating ones. Imagine that you could translate them.


“You (as in the enemy) are not going to snatch this victory away from Mel!”

“You try and take away her healing and I will scratch your eyes out!”

“This is her time with God, get your stinking paws off it!”

“Take that (whack) and that (whack) and that (whack) and there’s more where they came from!”

“Because of Christ’s resurrected body you will not prevail!”

Wow! So much ferocity, so much intimidation...and the enemy on the receiving end of them runs away!