Paris 2024: Photographing tennis singles with Coco Gauff vs Donna Vekic

The other day I woke up and headed off to the tennis venue here in Paris.  Tennis is being held in the infamous Roland-Garros Stadium (the home of the French Open), and it is really nice!

Upon arrival, the first thing I noticed is that the press room is plush! Great working stations, amazing air conditioning, and for the first time this Olympics, they actually had relatively cold water to drink. This is a luxury operation here!

This is a little nicer than the plastic tables and chairs we have almost everywhere else.

I was excited to photograph Coco Gauff for her singles match. I was also curious to see how the new Canon R5 MKII would work with fast action, and to see if there was any rolling shutter (distortion) in the racket and ball (which use to to happen with previous cameras). I decided to use the Canon RF 70-200mm lens to keep things light and easy.

As you can see, the camera performed amazingly well and I was happy with the results.

It was also REALLY hot the other day. By the time the game started, it was about 90 degrees and humid. Myself and a couple of other photographers braved the heat for about 20 minutes before giving up and heading to a shaded position. 

There is a low (and shaded) pit where some of the TV cameras are located. I went down there to get some low level shots (and stay cool). At this point, I already had a bunch of photos of Coco from the court, but I wanted to try and get something different. For this shot, I switched lenses to the Canon RF 100-300mm lens to get more reach and positioned myself so that Coco would be visible above the net, and waited for her to be by the rings. The timing was perfect here as she celebrated a winning shot right by the rings.

I also used the Olympic Rings for this photo. The tough part was trying to get a tight focus on Coco through the net. But I got it!

Here is a tighter crop of the same image. I think I like this even more (without the distractions of the microphone and TV camera).

At one point I noticed that I could see Coco from underneath Donna Vekic. I moved slightly to one side so that I could use Donna's legs as a frame for Coco. I really like this shot a lot, and hesitated to include it in the blog. Some people may not like this "view" because it is low on the closer subject, but because it is so out of focus, I think it is still tasteful and interesting. Your thoughts?

It was really cool to have this up-close view from this low position.

With the RF 100-300mm lens, I could get in really close!

Then I took the elevator to a high position to see what I could get. I really liked the shadows being created at this time of day, so I photographed to emphasize those.

Towards the end of the game, Coco had a serious disagreement with the ref, and of course as a photographer, I had to capture that.

I was really surprised when she turned around and I could see through the camera that she was crying. Coco had a tough day and I felt badly for her, but it happens to all athletes (and heck even to us photographers). 

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