Tennis, with strings attached
By Kevin Lamarque
The average weekend tennis hacker might never have their racquet restrung. A serious player might have their racquets strung every month, but for most players, once a year suffices. A top professional tennis player strings up to 6-racquets before EVERY match.
As a keen club player who strings his own racquets, I’ve always been intrigued by the elite teams of stringing professionals who work the major professional tournaments.
In the dark indoor passage that rings center court here at the Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne, Florida, players and coaches make their way to the stringing room, a daily ritual that goes unseen to the general tennis public.
The task of keeping all these tennis weapons finely tuned falls into the hands of a team of stringers here from Wilson and Luxilon. Over the course of the two week tournament, these master stringers work behind their machines as long as there are matches on court. It is not unusual for a player in the heat of a battle to request a “rush job” racquet to be strung at a particular tension based upon the changing elements or the particular feel the player is seeking. The stringing team is at the ready, swiftly getting the re-strung racquet in the hands of the player within the time it takes to play a mere few games.
Wimbledon, William and a Mexican Wave
Rafael Nadal is hurt. A physio and a doctor have arrived on court to inspect his left foot. I scramble to position myself directly across the court from his chair to capture what could be a crucial moment in the match. It is towards the end of a tense first set. Temperatures have only cooled slightly from a sweltering 33 degrees C (91F).
In my haste to capture Nadal’s injury I had left my original position with just a 300mm lens and Canon Mark 4 body, knowing I had to be agile as I joined a crush of photographers.
As I shot a few frames, I noticed out of the corner of my non-shooting eye his opponent Juan Martin Del Potro complaining that Nadal is wasting time. Engrossed in this unfolding tennis story, I try to ignore the crowd who are restless and trying to get a Mexican Wave going.
Then something clicks in my brain. A Mexican wave isn’t normally a big deal — but it is when British royal Prince William and his new wife Kate are in the audience.
Sure enough, as I swivel my camera to the royal box, the wave is sweeping towards them. I reach for the lenses that aren’t there because I left them at my original position and mutter a very un-regal curse. Thankfully, I still manage to capture William and the Duchess of Cambridge joining the fun, in their own awkward and out-of-sync style.
I was delighted to see William and Kate at Wimbledon and fancy them taking part in the Mexican Wave! It’s a shame they are setting off to Canada (no offence to Canada!) as they will miss Murray’s next match. http://donjoykneebrace-uk.com
My first Australian Open
When I was first told that I would be covering the Australian Open tennis tournament, I was very excited as it is a major global sporting event and I would get to fly out from Japan where it was cold, to a hot and sunny down under.
At the same time, frankly speaking, I had a feeling of fear and worry, since I had heard scary tales about shooting the event from a photographer who had covered it multiple times. Dreadful stories of heat, the scorching sun, cameras getting too hot to function and sometimes so hot that I wouldn’t even be able to touch it. I was told that one photographer’s computer had broken because of the extreme heat, and that sometimes the photographers’ chairs at the courtside got so hot that it was unbearable.
Another worrisome issue was the physical intensity of the coverage, especially the first few days, as I was told I’d be busy as there are nearly 130 preliminary matches in total. It would be so demanding with no time to rest and eat. When I heard about this, I wasn’t sure whether I could survive what sounded like a major ordeal. So the advice was to never wear short sleeves but instead, wear a white long-sleeved shirt, a hat, put on sun block, drink water constantly, cover up the gear with towels to block the heat and don’t over pace. Everything is a build up to the Men’s final, the finale of the two-week-long tournament.
After arriving in Melbourne’s Rod Laver arena I met my team which consisted of an editor, a processor and six photographers, including myself. Working as part of a team was an extremely valuable chance to learn from them and get feedback and tips from the more experienced tennis shooters. At the beginning, I tended to think the key picture was the classic shot of the player with the tennis ball smacked right on the racket. Soon, I learned that tennis pictures are not just about the player in action, but the reaction and the moments between the action, capturing the beauty of the body motion, the scenery in which the match was fought out in, the reactions of the coach, team members and the fans. Every one of these pictures is as important as each other, creating depth to the story.
Hey Yuriko….. you more than welcome to join us again and again to make us laugh and enjoy every second of the long, long hours… Hope to see you soon in some other big assignment…
from Russell Boyce:
Asia – A Week in Pictures January 30, 2011
Even though the world's gaze is firmly focused on the events in Egypt and Tunisia, top stories continue to break in Asia. Last week during my morning call with Enny Nuraheni, our Indonesia Chief Photographer, she told there was a ferry on fire with hundreds on board, a train had crashed and Mount Bromo was spewing ash, all on the same day. In Japan Mount Kirishima was erupting, thousands of birds culled to try to stop the spread of bird flu and the economy and government were under pressure. But all Japanese worries were forgotten briefly as Japan beat Australia 1-0 in the AFC Asian Cup final in Doha.
Volcanic lightning or a dirty thunderstorm is seen above Shinmoedake peak as it erupts, between Miyazaki and Kagoshima prefectures, in this photo taken from Kirishima city and released by Minami-Nippon Shimbun January 28, 2011. Ash and rocks fell across a wide swathe of southern Japan straddling the prefectures of Miyazaki and Kagoshima on Thursday, as one of Mount Kirishima's many calderas erupted, prompting authorities to raise alert levels and call on for an evacuation of all residents within a 2 km (1.2 miles) radius of the volcano. REUTERS/Minami-Nippon Shimbun
Issei Kato's picture of Prime Minister Kan addressing parliament is as frenetic as the politics themselves, while Kim Kyung-Hoon's picture to illustrate the economy perfectly timed as the eye is drawn into the frame by all the elements that appear in to be in choreographed perfection. If the apocalypse is coming it is sure to come in one of two forms; the eruptions of fire, smoke and lightening or the eerie silence of spreading disease. We had two pictures giving us a sneak preview of our potential fate. A wonderful image of the sheer beauty of the power, energy, light and colour of Mount Kirishima erupting and the whisper of deadly fumes as fully masked workers with red and blue targets sprayed on their white overalls, cull the hapless birds.
Workers wearing protection suits cull chickens at a poultry farm where the bird flu virus had been found in Miyazaki, southern Japan January 24, 2011. The Miyazaki prefecturalgovernment stepped up its efforts to fight bird flu on Monday, after it confirmed infections at a second local poultry farm and began culling about 410,000 chickens there the previous day, Kyodo news reports. REUTERS/Miyazaki prefectural government office
from Russell Boyce:
Asia – A Week in Pictures January 23 2011
As India heads towards their Republic Day celebrations, Prime Minister Singh makes minor adjustments to his cabinet while outside on the streets people demonstrate over food and fuel price inflation and corruption. Adnan Abidi produces a great picture as a middle-aged demonstrator gets to feel the full force of a police water canon. In stark contrast, B Mathur gets a glimpse of the dress rehearsal of the full military parade planned to celebrate India's independence where the security forces are deployed in a somewhat different manner. Danish Siddiqui added to the file this week with a well seen picture to illustrate a government spending initiative with a man pulling a pipe across a building site, the shadow creating an eye like image that almost seems to wink at the viewer.
Police use water canons to disperse supporters of India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during a protest in New Delhi January 18, 2011. Thousands of the supporters on Tuesday in New Delhi held a protest against a recent hike in petrol prices and high inflation. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
Indian Border Security Force (BSF) soldiers ride their camels during the full dress rehearsal for the Republic Day parade in New Delhi January 23, 2011. India will celebrate its Republic Day on Wednesday. REUTERS/B Mathur
A labourer pulls an underground cable at a construction site of a commercial complex in Mumbai January 20, 2011. India plans to spend $1.5 trillion over 10 years to revamp its creaky infrastructure, which is seen as a brake on its economic growth. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui
Center Court – A 30 year wait
Wednesday finally saw the culmination of a 30 year dream of mine to shoot a match on the famed center court at Wimbledon. After 30 years of being a photographer, 25 of those spent with Reuters covering every conceivable sports championship around the world, there were still two things I always wanted to photograph, but for one reason or another never had the opportunity to do so. One was shooting a match on center court and the other, covering a British Open golf championship at St. Andrews.
This year is not my first at Wimbledon, I have been here a number of times editing the great pictures our photographers take during the fortnight of tennis. There is no tennis tournament that produces the beautiful images that Wimbledon does. From the simple white clothes that the competitors must wear, to the light that seems to illuminate the court in a magical way, to the darkish backgrounds of spectators the perfect distance away from the player and to the history that has played out on the grass year after year, one can only describe the chance to be here as special.
Special in the same way it is to have a chance to photograph the Masters golf tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club. Wimbledon and the Masters are ageless events played out in a similar way with no commercialism and lots of green as backgrounds. They are both considered ultimate events to cover as a photographer. The Masters I have been fortunate enough to attend 20 times.
Growing up a huge sports fan and then becoming a sports photographer, Wimbledon was a place I wanted to see. The first tennis final I covered as a professional photographer was the Canadian Open final between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe in 1979. I don’t think I ever missed watching the men’s or women’ finals at Wimbledon enjoying the yearly Breakfast at Wimbledon TV broadcasts. Yes, my favorites were like everyone’s, the Borg-McEnroe marathon and the Nadal victory over Federer 2 years ago.
Great story, the third in a small space of time about the photographer’s feelings of the sports assignment. Getting your dreams come true is certainly worth the extra mile to try to squeeze in from editing to the actual shoot. I hope I get to share a similar story sometime around 2040.
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