Last weekend I had the opportunity to photograph the Philadelphia Freedoms as they competed against the Orange County Breakers. I learned a lot from the experience, so I thought I would share it with you. First off, tennis balls move very quickly, especially when the person serving holds the world’s record of 163.4 miles per hour. My Nikon D4 shoots 10 frames per second, which is very fast, but trying to photograph a ball moving at 23.9 feet every 1/10 of a second means that I’m lucky if I get one frame with the ball in the picture. There were quite a few sequences where there was never a ball to be found. It took some time to get proficient at it, but I will have more chances soon.
For World Team Tennis, each team consists of four players (two male, two female) and a coach. The rules are a bit different from regular tennis, so if you want to have a look, click here. Every tournament has five match ups. Men’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles. The game is fast paced and fun. The crowd is encouraged to get loud and be energetic through the event. Click here for the story and click here for all my pictures. I was there for Independence Sports Magazine so my pics are on their site.