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!

Keep up, would you?

The first day of a slam. It’s all so exciting and you make plans that it’s going to be such a fun and relaxed day of tennis-watching. Two hours go by and suddenly everything is happening at the same time, you can’t keep up and it is now super stressful. We fumble with our keyboards trying to flip streams because Twitter said a good match is going on at Court 18. What if it ends up becoming an epic? No one wants to miss out on an epic. *fumble* *fumble* *bufferiiiiiiing…* “Goddamnit!” Also, World No. 547 is leading the 12th seed over on MCA. “Wait, he was but not anymore? Is my stream delayed?” No. 22 is getting routined over at 4. Your sometimes favorite is in a deciding set against some dangerous floater. There’s an upset alert on Hise… RaaaaaaaaaahIlovetennis!

I tried to absorb as much as I could on Day 1 of the Australian Open. I tried so hard that my brain was starting to tap out before the day session ended then nodded off 2 games into the Hewitt-Tipsarvic match. WEAK. In no particular order, here’s what I remember most about the first day:

• You don’t engage in a long rally with a “rusty” Maria Sharapova because she’ll come alive.
• Venus Williams is looking sharp early on and is on course to meet Sharapova in the 3rd round.
• Sam Stosur won her first match of the year! Phew.
• Agree with Andy Roddick, Novak Djokovic is still good at tennis.
• Patrick McEnroe’s seemingly ridiculous prediction almost came true. That’s what you get for laughing, tennis world. And me, too.
• Grigor Dimitrov flames out to veteran, Julian Benneteau. Kid still has a lot of work to do on the tennis court. *winkyfaceemoji*
• What happened, Juan Monaco? And who is Andrey Kuznetsov?
• Sad we won’t be seeing more of Mona Barthel’s wide array of outfits.
• Ana Ivanovic scored a good win over Melinda Czink.
• Yung-Jan Chan def Daniela Hantuchova 6-1, 1-6, 6-1. Yeeeaaaap, this is Dani’s life these days.

I’m sure I’m forgetting a few notable matches/results because I don’t think this is even 1/4 of the Day 1 happenings. Aaah! Let’s do it again!

Image © Getty Images

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

Ajde’s back?

© ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

Is Ana Ivanovic back? Her form in Indian Wells certainly suggests so. Ana scored huge back-to-back wins over last year’s champion, Caroline Wozniacki, and finalist, Marion Bartoli. The famous forehand is clicking again and it’s fun to watch.

The next step for the Serb is to keep going at this level consistently. She showed great form in Rome 2 years ago but could not keep it up. Her semifinal match against Maria Sharapova will be a good test to see if her game can hold up under pressure. Sharapova’s pace of shot is something Ivanovic has not faced all tournament long.

It’s already been such a positive week for the former BNP Paribas Open champion. A win in the semifinals will definitely change the course of her year but a good showing against the world No. 2 will still be very encouraging.

Baby steps

Baby steps back into blogging. Here are some links! *wink*

• Serena, Kim and Ana notch wins in their first matches of 2012 in Brisbane. Kim and Ana are set to meet each other in the next round.
• MurrEndl? Keeping my fingers crossed that this partnership turns out well.
• Petko has a new move and it’s not the dance kind. Nothing but net? I’m thinking, aiiiiirbaaaall.
• No more Lacoste for Sam in 2012. She’ll be rocking Asics gear.
• Rafa’s going to play with a heavier racquet to add speed to his serve.
• Boom Boom and Gools find out which one of them is more German. You can keep your bonus points, sir.

Image via Getty

#BOTW2011 Fotos!

A few of my favorite photos from the last three days of the tournament. That does not mean I think they are good or well captured photos, just… my faves.

I’m sure you wondered how Gools lost, right? Well, first of all, she couldn’t see the ball.

Linesman Funny.

So, what did you think about DAT SERVE?

I’ll have more photo “collections” for you later. Sorting through a gabazillion photos isn’t exactly the easiest thing ever. I’ve added some more stuff at the Tennis View Magazine Facebook page, check them out if you’re bored.

#BOTW2011

I’m in Stanford for the 2011 Bank of the West Classic! If you follow me on Twitter, you probably already knew that but if not then now you know. I’m shooting a bit for Tennis View Magazine again here. Yesterday was my first day on site and I had a blast! A big part of it was because I hung out with C-Note almost all day and we were just cracking up at everything.

First on my agenda for the day was to shoot in the pit for Sabine Lisicki’s match and that’s what I did. You should know that the pit in Stanford is basically just chairs on the court like the linespeople’s except there is no box thing to atleast protect your feet from stray balls (kinda). The entire time I was shooting, I was waiting to get hit by one of Boom Boom’s 125s and fall to my death. It was good times.

“Masha is practicing,” says my sister’s text. *bolts* Later, Sabine! I get to Masha’s practice court and I see Rebecca Marino. WHY DID YOU LIE TO ME THIS IS NOT MASH— holy sheeeeet, what is happening!

I wouldn’t say they were each other’s practice partners. It was more like, Rebecca was Masha’s hitting partner. Becks served some balls so Masha can practice her return.

RM: “One more?”

MS: “Yup.”

“Want another one?”

“Yeah.”

“Another one?”

*points to the other side of the court*

“You do you, Mash,” says C-Note after I tell her the story. Hilarious. Although, Masha did help Rebecca work on some overheads— gave her some high balls! They then played a practice set and at the end shook hands/exchanged some thanks/nothanks and whatnot but I was too stunned they touched that I was unable to move to capture it. I was, however, not stunned at all that Masha missed a backhand during their practice set and shot a little clip of her reaction.

More good times.

Masha practiced a bit more with Hoggy and they worked on her serve a lot. No one was happy with what was going on. Why does the ball keep hitting the tape/net? WHY GOD? I left before practice was over but my sister told me they were all laughs when they started doing some fitness drills.

That right there is my best shot of the day.

Blue and pink are adidas’s colors of choice this summer. Blue is also Julia Goerges’s (Nike) but she likes it with… green? Either that or sheduncurr.

You can check out some photos I took of the matches over at the Tennis View Magazine Facebook page.