NEW YORK _ For Karolina Pliskova, silence is golden.
In the modern game of tennis, shrieking, squawking, grunting and groaning is the norm, especially in the women's game.
When Pliskova makes contact with a tennis ball, all you hear is the smack. She is the anti-Sharapova. Before she was banned from tennis for two years for a doping violation, Sharapova also was known as Shriekapova for her ear-splitting shrieks when she made contact with a ball. A London newspaper once used a sound measure device at Wimbledon to calculate that Sharapova could shriek at more than 100 decibels.
The Williams sisters let out discernible groans and squawks, and most women's players are identifiable for the squeals they make. The medical term for it is valsalva, and a player valsalvering is expelling air rapidly at the apex of physical effort.
Venus Williams was typically crying out during her match with Pliskova on Sunday. On the other side of the net, Pliskova played in silence as she earned a three-set win and a quarterfinal spot against Ana Konjuh on Wednesday.
"I'm not screaming, no," Pliskova said. "I breath into the shot, but I've never screamed."
