Tennis players should be dis-gruntled?

LONDON (Reuters) - Wimbledon referee Alan Mills has had enough of noise pollution -- he wants to crack down on grunting tennis players.

Defending women's champion Maria Sharapova was recorded by a tabloid newspaper's unofficial "gruntometer" at 101.2 decibels on Center Court Tuesday.

The noise, almost as loud as a police siren, was said to have broken her previous record.

"It is something I would like to see stopped," Mills told Reuters Wednesday.

But the big noises of tennis are unrepentant.

After the Sun newspaper labeled the Russian teen-ager "Bawl-Breaker," Sharapova was asked at her first post-match press conference if she felt she was being particularly loud.

"You always ask me the same questions," she said. "I don't pay any attention to that and I never have and I never probably will."

A defiant Serena Williams, whose first-round match with compatriot Angela Haynes featured much noise from both sides, said: "I am going to carry on grunting. It's not my business to control what people think."

Mills, who retires this summer after more than two decades in charge at the tournament, said the two single biggest complaints the All England Club gets in letters from Wimbledon spectators were about players grunting and spitting.

Notices about spitting have been put up in four languages in the Wimbledon locker rooms and Mills said they were having some effects.

"I think the message is getting through," Mills added. "But the grunting has got progressively worse over the years. I would really like it curbed. I am sure coaches can play their part."

So how can the grunters be toned down at Wimbledon?

"Opponents have to complain first for the chair umpire to do something. We have to monitor the situation carefully," Mills said.