It is not the first time for Beijing to welcome big guns of the tennis world, but spectators still seem to be unfamiliar with the sport which acquires people to stay quiet during a match.

If a rally gets long, the crowd may start cheering before it's over and sometimes they get excited when a first serve ball goes into the net, not to speak those who talk aloud to the phone.

Some enthusiastic audience in the ongoing Olympic tennis competition apparently become a headache for the elite players. However, some others tend to love it.

"The crowd is quite enthusiastic, they love tennis. Sometimes they get quite excited. It is quite distracting for us, you know, for me and for my opponent," said Serbian Jelena Jankovic after making it to the women's singles quarterfinals on Wednesday.

"But it's very difficult to explain to them in Chinese or I don't know how to do it.

"During the point, we are really fighting hard, you know, to play each ball, and you hear such a loud applause. You have to try to stay as focused as possible during those times," she said.

The noise is pretty normal in soccer, basketball, volleyball and even table tennis, a sport quite like tennis. But for a sport originating from the French church and being developed in the British royal court, gentle manners seem to be understandable and acceptable.

The problem is that the so-called royal sport is totally an import for the Olympic host country although an estimated millions of people have been taking on the sport in China.

"It doesn't make sense if you could not make a sound during a tennis match. I understand it is a tradition, but why should these tennis players be so spoiled and even not take pressure from the crowd?" a tennis fan born in the 1980s told Xinhua at the Olympic Green Tennis Center on Thursday, "Probably it is time for some innovation."

The noise becomes noticeably louder when the match involves a Chinese player. The applause is meant to be encouragement, but it's already become a monkey on the Chinese players' back.

"The matches are really tough, and I have gained great support from my fans. However, maybe some fans are not familiar with the requirements of tennis games," said Zheng Jie, the Wimbledon semifinalist, after her second round match against Spaniard Nuria Llagostera Vives on Tuesday.

"Sometimes they may cheer too early, which will bother the players. I hope that next time maybe they can pay attention to that."

However, in the third round match against Russian sixth seed Dinara Safina and Zheng's doubles match on Wednesday, the crowd still did the same.

The sport became popular since the Athens 2004 when China's Li Ting/Sun Tiantian claimed the women's doubles gold medal and China has started to host some professional events like China Open in Beijing and Masters Cup in Shanghai.

"I saw the Fed Cup competitions and some other matches in China this year, people walked around and talked a lot during the match. People didn't know much about tennis, so we need to work on it," said the ITF technical delegate Eiichi Kawatei during the Olympic tennis draw ceremony.

But some players seem not to be upset by the lively people.

"I noticed that in the long rallies, they were living and dying with each point. I thought it was kind of funny," said American fourth seed Serena Williams.

"Actually, I was playing team tennis this year, and the crowds were so loud. I didn't even know it would be a good warmup for this, but it was a great warmup for this. Now it actually makes me get excited they're so into the point. It's actually kind of cool. I like it."

Swiss world number one Roger Federer did not usually play in Asia where local players are playing at a low level, but he also understands the situation.

"At times they're reserved and then at times they really get excited. I think they feel like this is a big stage, with the lights and everything," he said.

Australian former world number one Lleyton Hewitt holds the same idea.

"It was a good crowd. Made a fair bit of noise. They were very knowledgeable about tennis, I think. You know, it was a very fair crowd. I think they just wanted to see good tennis out there," said Hewitt.

But if Serbian Jankovic wants to progress in the tennis event, she has to learn how to cope with the noise, especially playing against a Chinese player in the Centre court.

"I think it's much better to have some kind of atmosphere. It's better than have quiet fans that don't even applaud," Jankovic said.

(Xinhua News Agency August 14, 2008)