ITF F4 Futures Tournament, Exmouth, February 2007

This is my first attempt to photograph an indoor tennis tournament. The main difficulty, as you might expect, is light, or a lack of it to be more precise. Also, out of respect to those competing (so not to disturb their concentration), no photography of actual matches was allowed, so I was restricted to photographing practice sessions. Then there's the netting to stop the (very fast!) tennis balls leaving the court area: it's like photographing through wire link fencing. All you can do is get as close to it as possible and hope to throw it completely out of focus. Okay, I figure that's about enough excuses for the shots I got being a bit grainy and somewhat less than pin sharp. As with my other pages, please click on any image to see a larger version.

I noticed that, prior to the final round of qualifying, players umpired their own matches and there were very few disputes. Any that did occur were dealt with by roaming referees. However, once umpires were in control, disputes became pretty commonplace. I'm sure there's a lesson to be learnt there some place! I did see several very poor calls by officials and I can certainly sympathise with a player on the wrong end of a bad call, especially when it's on match point as was the case for one particularly bad call I saw. However, some players perhaps need to realise that nobody is infallible, neither umpires nor players, and there's little good done by bad-mouthing an umpire for the remainder of a match. Perhaps opponents who see that the call was wrong should own up to it more often, and in those cases the umpires should take note. This sort of honesty might promote better sportsmanship on court from which all players, officials, and spectators would benefit. But that's just my humble opinion.

Incidentally, I should point out that the player in the photo (right) made his objection and then just got on with things. Fair play to him for that.

Today (Wednesday) was the singles second round and it produced some very good matches. Unfortunately the remaining three British players (Matthew Illingworth (right), Edward Corrie, and Matthew Smith) were all knocked out at this stage.

I concentrated on photographing two enthralling matches, one between two powerful servers, Ralph Grambow and Gary Lugassy, and the other between two very dynamic, athletic players, Torsten Popp and Alexandre Lacroix. The majority of photographs below are from those two matches. So how did I get to photograph matches in progress after what I said at the top of this page? Well, luckily I was able to see the courts from my position behind the practice court and could photograph the play without disturbing the players.
Left-hander Gary Lugassy eventually held on to win a vey close match in a 3rd set tie-breaker.
Number one seed, Torsten Popp, and the athletic qualifier, Alexandre Lacroix, gave us a match to enjoy. Certainly from my point of view it was highly enjoyable as it presented no end of good photo opportunities. After looking at my photos of this match you could be forgiven for thinking that these two players spend more time in the air than being in touch with Mother Earth.
Torsten Popp defeated Alexandre Lacroix and, from his reaction after the winning point, he clearly knew he'd had a worthy opponent.

Quarter-finals day (Thursday), and photography was very difficult for me because of a rearrangement of the court usage. However, I managed one or two shots from afar. It did mean I had more time simply watching the tennis though! Sadly Torsten Popp looked like he was suffering a fair bit of discomfort and was only a shadow of his normal self. Certainly he was not moving well, and Gary Lugassy brushed him aside fairly comprehensively.

The match of the day, perhaps, was between Rasmus Norby of Denmark, a qualifier, and the no. 2 seed, Stefan Wauters of Belgium. The first set went to a tie-breaker with Wauters coming out on top, but the second set saw Norby break Wauters' serve twice to win 6-2. The third set again went to a tie-breaker but this time Norby came through to win a fascinating match.
Alsam Qureshi playing a text book volley (well, that's what he said when he saw the photo!) during his practice session with doubles partner, Purav Haja.

Purav Haja setting up one of those text book volleys :o)

Qureshi & Haja will be playing in the doubles final against the British pair (and no. 1 seeds), Neil Bamford and Jim May. Bamford and May today knocked out the German pairing of Ralph Grambow and Marc Meigel.
Jim May serving on the way to victory with doubles partner Neil Bamford over their semi-final opponents.