“I find the whole thing a little bit sad; it’s a distraction I don’t need,” she said in an interview with The Guardian newspaper this week in Liverpool, England, where she was playing in an exhibition event.  She later said that she intended to keep grunting during play.  “I really hope the English crowd respects me as a player and not just some annoying little 16-year-old,” she said in Liverpool. “I’m not trying to be a nuisance or anything. I hope they can understand that I’m just trying to become the No. 1 player in the world.”  She added: “I’ve been on court for two and a half years now, and it’s never been an issue before. I’ve been on TV, I’ve played live matches, and no one’s ever complained before.”  Martina Navratilova has complained, however. Without mentioning Larcher de Brito, Navratilova called for a crackdown during a speech at the International Tennis Federation’s champions dinner during the French Open.  “The grunting has reached an unacceptable level,” said Navratilova, who won 18 Grand Slam singles titles.  “It is cheating, pure and simple. It is time for something to be done.”  Larcher de Brito’s opponent on Monday in the first round is Klara Zakopalova of the Czech Republic, a diminutive baseliner who defeated Serena Williams on clay in April and pushed her to three sets at the French Open.  Though Williams can grunt loudly on occasion, Zakopalova said that it “was not that bad” and never a concern. But she said she was expecting problems against Larcher de Brito.  “I watched the match against Rezai on television, and it was too much, even watching on television,” Zakopalova said. “I will see how it is and if it bothers me, and if it’s bad, I will talk to the umpire. We’ll see.”  Navratilova has been on the front line of this issue before. The rise of Monica Seles and her two-toned grunt sparked complaints from players and officials in the early 1990s, and Seles, like Larcher de Brito, was warned to tone down her act.  She has had plenty of successors, including Sharapova and the Williams sisters. During a match between Venus Williams and Sharapova at Wimbledon in 2007, spectators actually began to laugh during one of the extended rallies because of the vigorous exchange of grunts.  There was no such laughter in Paris, but Larcher de Brito did not lose the public solely because of her shrieks. She lost them because of her belligerent, frequently unsportsmanlike body language: full of glares and fist pumps and war whoops after Rezai’s unforced errors as well as Larcher de Brito’s own winners.  It was unattractive and noisy. In the land of the gruntometer, everyone should soon find out exactly how noisy.  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page D2 of the New York edition with the headline: A Player’s Reputation Precedes Her, Loudly. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Michelle Larcher de Brito, whose shrieks drew complaints at the French Open, could be docked points for distracting her opponents at Wimbledon.