!Murray Good morning all. I said in yesterday's post that I'd picked up a cold - today you really don't want to know how I'm feeling. I've decided to stay home from Queen's Club to watch the tennis on TV, and try to be better for the semifinals and final at the weekend. I have got as far as uploading all of Wednesday's pictures into a web gallery found on this link - TW's contingent of Grigor Dimitrov KADs might be feeling very happy as a result. There are, of course, plenty of pictures of other players too. Just use the arrows to page through the pictures, and click on any that you would like to enlarge. I'm still working on sorting yesterday's pictures, and will provide the link for those as soon as they are ready.
In addition to feeling under the weather, I'm working on this post a little late, for technical reasons. For no apparent reason - that is, I didn't spill coffee (or alcohol) over my keyboard in reaction to anything written in TW yesterday - the 'p' key and the return key on my desktop computer's keyboard stopped working overnight. That means that to save you all being asked to decipher the gobbledegook that was being typed as a result, I've pulled out my laptop to compose upon, but lost time as a result. At least it's not as bad as the time my fixed internet connection went down, and because my house is out of transmitter range I was forced to switch to using my remote mobile connection in the middle of a field full of horses, which is as close to the house as a mobile connection can be achieved.
It appears from my email traffic this week that a few readers are enjoying the commentary on what it's like to be a photographer at a tournament, so with apologies to those who don't care for the subject, I'll carry on mentioning it here and there - email me if you have technical questions; even if I can't answer them myself, I'll have opportunities at the weekend to ask experts who can answer them.
After catching a chill in the wind up high, I was feeling sorry enough for myself yesterday to be relatively unadventurous with my choice of camera positions - that is, I stuck to sitting at courtside. However, this had the decided benefit of keeping me close to the action during the match with Lleyton Hewitt and Andy Roddick, which for me was the match of the day. For various reasons I've also not photographed Roddick extensively, and to begin with I prefer the closer camera position (rather than the one high up at the back of the stands) because it gives me far more options to experiment with different lenses - either to get full-body shots, or to try to get closer-cropped action shots, which are the most difficult to achieve because of the need for precise but split-second framing. Those close-cropped pictures can't be taken from the higher camera position, at least not with the equipment I (and most other photographers) have at the event. It's difficult to comment on an entire match when photographing the players, because I'm inevitably concentrating on only one viewpoint at any given moment, but given that the match ended as a two-tiebreak victory for Roddick, it basically came down to the Roddick serve, and Hewitt making a few too many errors off the ground.
!Rod The two players certainly don't look like sworn enemies - when the match was delayed while a bomb threat was investigated, they chatted amiably at the net while waiting for the warmup to start. But there was one incident that occurred during the match, which I saw being discussed in the comments here yesterday. During a rally, Hewitt sent a lob to the baseline, and Roddick, on tracking it down, appeared to let it go because he thought it was out. A short moment later, the linesman called it out. I suppose there could be some doubt over this timing, but that's how it looked and sounded to me, and my camera was turned on Roddick at the time. Hewitt challenged the call, and Hawkeye showed that the ball was in. Initially the umpire, Gerry Armstrong, awarded the point to Hewitt, I assumed on the basis that Roddick had left the ball. Roddick disputed the judgment on the basis that he'd had a play on the ball - which he probably had, albeit it looked as though he'd decided not to play it before the call was made. The umpire then changed his mind, and decided that the point should be replayed.
At this point Hewitt protested that the umpire had changed his mind after being influenced by Roddick. However, although looking disgruntled, he accepted the decision. I suspect if Hewitt had wanted to, he could have called on the supervisor and claimed the point. Gerry Armstrong was also the umpire during the notorious match between Philipp Kohlschreiber and Tommy Robredo in Hamburg last year, when he made a similarly quick decision to award a point to Robredo, then reversed his decision (correctly) to say that the point should go to Kohlschreiber. At the time Robredo protested the decision, and when the supervisor was called it was affirmed that the rules stated that the umpire's initial decision is final, so Robredo was awarded the point, which came at a crucial moment, and may have cost Kohlschreiber the set; the dispute itself can't have been easy to weather.
After the match, Hewitt left the court quickly, not stopping to sign autographs. Roddick took his time leaving, and at that stage I heard Gerry Armstong apologise to him over the disputed point, saying that he'd made the wrong decision too quickly. I guess one question is whether it was the wrong decision at all; another might be whether it was fair to say this to Roddick after his opponent has already left. Hewitt was sportsmanlike about what had occurred even though the point was legitimately his, but ultimately the poor umpiring here had the potential to affect both players.
I'll sign off for now - back later with more pictures.
-- Rosangel Valenti