At Roland-Garros, it's the roar: will you be able to recognize the cries of the international tennis players?

The first players shouting on the courts dates back to 1959, according to the specialist press . It cites the name of Robert Howe, an Australian tennis player, who is also among the pioneers of the two-handed backhand. However, it was not until the 1990s that serial "shouters" emerged. In the men's game, the Americans Jimmy Connors and Andre Agassi established themselves as the great specialists of the "bell" on clay.

Since then, the phenomenon has continued to grow, so much so that the venerable BBC launched a grunt-o-meter in 2015 to measure the shouting of players. In the ranking, the Russian Maria Sharapova, now retired from the courts, reached 105 decibels (dB) – as loud as a revved motorbike – and the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, around 90 dB – roughly the equivalent of a circular saw.

However, the matter is serious, and science backs it up. A 2014 study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research estimated that a player gains 4.9% more power on serve when shouting while hitting the ball, while another study estimated a 3.8% gain during rallies.