Good morning. Comme toujours, here's your regular space for discussing this week's Masters Series tournament at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy. We'd appreciate it if you could keep your discussions focused on the day's tennis during this busy time, and save your off-topic thoughts until after the matches are over.
I spent yesterday at the tournament, mainly ensconsed in one of the courtside photographers' positions. I did, however, take some time to watch tennis unencumbered by a camera, sitting with mariej for part of the match between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Radek Stepanek.
While taking pictures, one thing I've found in Paris (similar to my experience last year, when I didn't have the benefit of being so close to the action) is that the light levels are lower than they were at the comparable tournament in Madrid, which makes it even more of a photographic challenge. Usually (unless you're looking for special effects) sports photography requires the use of a fast shutter speed to stop action. Indoors, professionals don't use flash during play, and there's always a balance to be struck between the shutter speed used, and the speed to which the photographer is willing to push a digital sensor (the faster the speed, the poorer the quality of the resulting shot, especially as the camera approaches its limits). Suffice it to say that I have a lot of pictures where I've managed to freeze the player, but his racquet head is blurred because it's moving a lot faster than he is.
Luckily, my pictures for TennisWorld don't all need to be about stopping the action. We've had discussions about this in the past. In addition to what we think about their games, many of us enjoy seeing the players demonstrate their characters on court, and usually facial expressions can be captured without needing a shutter speed of 1/1000th of a second. I spent a while concentrating on photographing Gilles Simon yesterday. He won over Igor Andreev, but I couldn't help fearing for his "not a headcase' status in the current pantheon of TW favourites, because he almost out-grimaced Rafael Nadal. Not that the latter had great reason to pull faces yesterday, during a very comfortable win over Florent Serra, who has never yet demonstrated any consistent way to hurt him. From courtside it looked as though Nadal's spins on the ball were constantly giving him trouble, even though the court does not look as high-bouncing as some other hard courts. The courts, incidentally, don't appear much faster than they were last year.
!Gillou Matches of the Day
For me the pick of the day will be the first evening session - local favourite Gael Monfils (who has been playing well so far this week) against Rafael Nadal. The atmosphere should be terrific; I'm looking forward to this one.
There are plenty of other matches to enjoy today. Del Potro and Nalbandian have traded wins against each other in Madrid and Basel in the past two weeks; they face off again this morning. It's a crucial match, because Shanghai places are still in the offing. There should also be plenty of interest in the Tsonga versus Djokovic encounter. At the Australian Open in the final this year, Djokovic prevailed in four sets; Tsonga avenged that loss in Bangkok recently, 7-6, 6-4.
Player of the Day
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, with a three-sets win over Radek Stepanek. The crowd were very enthusiastic for this match. The stadium wasn't full, but most of the empty seats are up at the back.
Pictures of the Day
While carefully co-ordinating their individual looks for colours, David Nalbandian and Gilles Simon manfully compete for the daily "most pained expression" award.
As always, enjoy today's tennis.
