4 days in the desert

I was in Indian Wells this year shooting for Tennis Panorama. (Thanks, Karen!) Four days in the desert with the two loves of my life, photography and tennis, I had a grand time. Obvs.

Laura Robson vs Sofia Arvidsson was the first match I went to. Laura ran across my frame and I caught this shot 3 minutes in. Not bad. Laura had a pretty good start, too, until…

Oh, well, next time.

Unhappy Pico. Maybe it was because the Argentine fans were on the wrong side of the court.

Rafa is totes judging.

It was great to see Petko back on a tennis court!

You know who else was great to see?

Clueless Pablo is the best Pablo, K?

YOU’RE WELCOME.

BYE.

Okay, Ivo, let’s refocus.

I’m pretty happy about this shot.

Rafa is late.

Masha showing off her shirt that says eternity, time with a circle and a line.
Is that, like, Geometry or what?!

ANYWAY. Some sort of Geometry obviously went into the making of this.

Totes.

Nole being Nole rolling around the grass for no reason.

Sveta being Sveta.

Benoit! Fans!

Petra’s not happy.

Muzz was not happy here either but he was using #sarcasmfont.

GUISE, WHY YOU ALL MAD?

Night time closing in during Masha’s match. She’s ready to sleep.

Rafa under the watchful eye of Mr. Ellison.

Empty practice courts at 11:00PM.

And that’s all I got from IW. I am quite pleased about how Finals Sunday unfolded in the desert. Let’s do it again next year!

Serena & Andy early favorites for Oz

Serena Williams started off the new season right where she left off. Errr, that’s winning, if you’ve been living under a tree. As usual, it’s hard to see anyone beating Serena in Melbourne but a Viriginie Razzano could always emerge out of nowhere. And only a Virginie catching Serena on an off day can beat her. Vika and Masha ain’t doin’ it.

Between training, playing and winning, Serena found some time to take a stroll around Brisbane. She looked super relaxed in this cute floral number. (Side note: Florals will forever be this to me.)

Current US Open champ, Andy Murray, successfully defended his Brisbane title. He looked a little off, especially during his opening round, but worked his way through a soft-ish field. Shaky play isn’t ideal but Andy will walk into a Slam grounds as a major champion for the first time ever. That should do some weird (in a good way) things to his confidence.

During his winner’s speech, Andy revealed that he’s been playing with a heavy heart as his best friend and doubles specialist, Ross Hutchins, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma last December. Ross announced via Twitter that he will be taking time off tennis to undergo treatment for the disease.

I am doing well, very positive with excellent medical support,friends and family around me. Looking forward to being back on the court soon!

— Ross Hutchins (@RoscoHutchins) January 6, 2013

I wish Ross a smooth and speedy recovery!

Images © Getty

IIWAPE

Let us (me) play a game called: If I Were A Photo Editor. Here are some of the photos I’d use to wrap the London 2012 Games.

A typical tennis audience size. Juuuuuuuust kidding.

Pins are apparently all the craze at the Olympics. I’m assuming Vee received the coveted RF pin.

A glitch in the system! This rare hair moment during the semifinals should have set off alarms that things were going to be very messy.

See photo. Use photo.

“Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka shared a laugh together.” Nobody would have believed me if there wasn’t photographic evidence.

Sisters.

My new life goal is to smack an Olympic gold medalist’s face with a flag. Because why not?

Goodnight.

Images via AP, Getty

1 out of 461

In his second round match against Jarkko Nieminen, Andy’s back suddenly tightened up at the beginning of the match that he could barely move to his forehand and push off on his serves. Almost everyone on the Twitter-verse was begging him to stop playing and save his health for the big summer coming up in London. But we all know Andy is stubborn and likes to do the opposite of what people tell him to. All of Great Britain has been pleading with him to win Wimbledon and he does, well, we all know the answer to that. Juuuust kidding! I still think he will do it one day.

Anyway, back to Andy’s back. He limped through and lost the first set and called the trainer afterward; and then received treatment including, I assume, some pain killers. Andy fell behind early in the second set but as it went on he slowly started moving better and won 4 games in a row to steal the set. But it wasn’t all because of the magic pills, Jarkko assisted him in his rise from the dead by hitting balls everywhere but inside the lines. Andy then breezed through the third and fourth sets to book his spot in the third round—bad back and all.

Mid-way through the opening set, ESPN showed a stat that surprised me: in 460 matches, Andy has only retired once. My mental image of him is either growling, clutching his thighs and/or ankles or looking like he’s about to pass out any second. Every match there’s always something with Andy—some real, some not so much—but if you can look past all the theatrics, you’ll appreciate all the work that he puts in to become one of the strongest guys on Tour. This 1 out of, now, 461 statistic proves how excellent his conditioning has been throughout the years and why he was almost certain his body would be able to overcome that muscle tightness.

Image © PATRICK KOVARIK/AFP/GettyImages

La Terre Battue

Are you ready for the second slam of the year? I’m not. But maybe you are. The draws come out tomorrow and for us who are not in Paris, we will mindlessly stare at our Twitter timelines and pretend to understand what’s happening as they pick out and place the players’ names.

Roger is in Nole’s half again… duh.

First round is… Rafa vs Nalby. WOT? Why do the tennis gods do this?

Hold on, nevermind. It’s actually Nalby vs Qualifier, I get confused which lines play each other.

Milos vs Murray third round. LOL. I think. I don’t know anymore!!!!

Every. Damn. Slam. I get quite the kick out of it.

Here are some must-reads/sees (according to me) as we look ahead to Roland Garros:

• Brian Baker. Keep an eye out for him.
  I hope he’s not too tired from Nice to make a mini run in Paris.
• The parallels of Rafael Nadal and Bjorn Borg’s clay court dominance.
• Great interviews with Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic on CNN
• Sport Illustrated writers preview the men’s field. Their pick for the title? Some guy whose name rhymes with Nafa.
• Richard Pagliaro’s 5 contenders for the women’s title. Hard to disagree with this list. I initially thought of Kvitova instead of Stosur but Petra limped out of Rome so her level is a big question mark right now.
• The floaters who might (or might not) shake it up for the top seeds.

In not really RG-related but kinda…

• Nole signs with Uniqlo. He’s not wearing all-white while rolling around the RG dirt, is he?
  Full disclosure: I wrote this.
• Pablo is on Twitter. That’s all. Move along.

Image via Roland-Garros

It’s always something with you

While I was “away”, many things happened.

Pablo defended his Casablanca title. And needed a hug. From me, obvs.

Then everyone decided to freshen up their looks for spring. First came Muzz:

Followed by Masha who sent the whole world into hysterics with this:

But then said, LOL! JK, banana! However, Sveta’s totally not JK-ing.

This proves that tennis wants to keep me close at all times. I’m flattened flattered.

Images via AP & Sharapova’s Facebook

Tennis has jokes… kinda

© REUTERS/Michael Fiala

These are mostly videos I missed (or have bookmarked and forgot to share) while I was having too much fun in Indian Wells.

Who knew Rafa was a prankster?! Also, Muzz, JOHNNY BRAVO??? Really?

Best. Video. Ever.

Grisha and Dolly both want to “hit” the same racket. It’s hilarious…ly awkward.

Caro pulled a (fail) prank on Masha. I think after their quality time in MSG, Caro thought they were buds. Yikes. Sorry, high fives are not available at this time.

Speaking of Masha, do you ever wonder what goes on in her head when she’s posing for photos at her $ponsors’ events? Creep, wonder no more.

Guys, meet Andy Rocket. He says things like, “blah blah blah,” to be funny. I think.