My first ATP tournament — Tomáš Hrivňák Photography

I have discovered my love for tennis just a couple years ago, but since, it skyrocketed into addiction. At one point I was watching a grand slam tournament and thought to myself, why am I not a part of this?

I put some thought into this idea, that in fact, I could get into tennis photography. Why not? I have experience as a photographer, I could do this. But how? What am I going to show to a client? Pictures from hockey? I decided that I might need a portfolio first.

„Tennis matches in Slovakia 2019“ filled the Google search bar on my phone whilst Naomi Osaka attempted a second service against Coco Gauff on the TV screen. A set of Davis cup matches between Slovakia and Switzerland popped up. It took me around two seconds to contact a sports editor of one of the national newspapers to give me a green light on the media back up. He agreed that I can photograph the event on behalf of the paper. Shortly after, I practically bombarded the press office of Davis cup with my emails, application and phone calls. This was all very last minute because the accreditation process was de facto over. Thanks to the very sweet lady in charge of photo pass, I got in.

I enjoyed those two days spent on clay a lot. I got my photo published in a newspaper and I called it a relative success, but it just wasn’t enough for me. I needed, in fact, I craved more tennis experience. I was shocked because I have photographed sports before and I never got hooked to the genre as much. Furthermore, it turned out that an ATP tournament in Vienna is on the waiting list of the season. Repeating the process with the sports editor, who couldn't care less about an event hosting zero Slovak tennis players, but was too nice to turn me down, I applied for accreditation.

I had to struggle a bit since I don't own a press ID card, as I’m not a strong believer of paying for it a lot of money. But eventually, I got in with my CV. I will tell you, there is nothing like receiving an ATP photo pass with your face on it when you are a diehard tennis fan.

A photo bench at the Erste Bank Open in Vienna.

I stayed at my uncle's apartment in Vienna and was lucky I could spend the whole week at the tournament without extra expenses. Now, travelling to the stadium turned out to be a bit of an adventure as I had to sit on the chairs of various public transport vehicles for about an hour each way, but what the hell, I read a book for once.

When I arrived at the press centre in the Wiener Stadthalle I almost didn’t have a place to sit, because it was fairly crowded. I was also a bit stressed out, I have been in many places like this, don’t get me wrong, I have worked for a newspaper for quite some time now. But I really wanted to make a good impression at my first tournament. I picked a place to sit and quickly got my cameras ready. I didn't know what the light conditions are going to be like. So, I made a safe decision on the 24-70 and 70-200 lenses and took off to shoot my first match.

My experience from the Davis Cup has proven to be quite handy because now I could at least get the tennis ball in almost every shot I take (Yes that was a detail to master). I have struggled with the sharpness of my images though. It took me two days until I learned how far I can push the limits of my camera and find the right depth of field to make any good shots.

Even though the newspaper printed on my press pass probably didn't even check my shots I kept dropping into our shared google drive folder, I tried to make this whole week into my personal workshop of fast journalism. I did my best to compete with the speed of news agency photographers and have my pictures edited by the end of each match if possible.

Now, that sounds like an impossible task, but it’s a fairly common practice in news photography. I have published photo stories from a protest from my phone before the event actually ended in the past, but the amount of footage I’ve gathered here was incomparable.

Over the course of the week, I’ve developed multiple routines that have helped me become super fast.

Around 10 000 people watched as Dominic Thiem served in Wiener Stadthalle.

In-camera photo selection

When I was shooting the Davis cup, I sat in a special photo booth, with benches and a short fence in front of me. So when I had my laptop placed on a bench the whole time, no one ever noticed. I would just swap the cards from my camera to the computer and edit my photos while players attempted to serve, or during a break between the changes of the serve.

My situation at the ATP was very different as the photography bench was inside the court and the space was fairly limited. Trust me, it felt like on a morning bus there. So, what I turned out doing something I never ever do: deleting pictures in my camera. I realized, that since I wouldn’t have much time to run through the photos, I had to sort them out while shooting. So, every time the game stopped for a second, I chimped over the screen and deleted all the pictures lacking a ball in them. This simple habit saved me a lot of time in the final editing process. Plus, I didn’t drown my Lightroom in tons of RAWs.

The next habit I’ve adopted from the other photojournalists at the event. I specifically paid attention to the photographers from news agencies, because they had to be the fastest of all. So, what I ended up doing was always returning to the newsroom after the first set, quickly selecting, say, ten photos and editing them on spot. I have then transferred those images into my phone and google drive, so I was ready to share them on my Instagram the minute the game has ended.

If it was possible, I always put a new card in my camera. This was very helpful, in the case of the picture below, which I thought was very important. In fact the only photograph I needed from the second set. I used the wifi feature in my D750 to download the picture of Matteo Berrettini celebrating his victory into my phone. This process would take much longer if I've had 300 images on my card because I would have to import all the thumbnails to my phone since that's how the app works.

What helped me to increase my work efficiency was also a realization of how small is the number of photos I actually needed to tell the story of the match. I thought “Nobody will use more than fifteen images of the same game for anything. No one has room for them.”

Dominic Thiem has celebrated his great victory as he rose the champion trophy over his head for the first time in Vienna. I also celebrated that day. I’ve spent the whole week trying to get out of my own shell and make some connections. But networking wasn’t going the way I thought first days... well actually nearly all of them. I was afraid of making a bad impression to someone in the newsroom because I have looked up to many of them throughout the tournament. I’m a journalist and I almost never have a problem talking to anyone. „What is happening here,“ I thought to myself. But finally, the last day, just before leaving I forced myself out of that comfort zone and finally talked to two photographers. They had me leave the tournament with words full of encouragement and feeling really good about my future in tennis photography.

When I set back at my uncle's place that night, I couldn't believe the week I’ve experienced. I swear I had the cursor of my touchpad pointed on the book button next to a flight ticket to London, for the ATP Masters. I didn’t do it at the end, but I promise you, I will soon be back on the court!