State Tennis Day 2, Making History...

The second day of state tennis is always the more exciting, photo-wise. The championship matches are almost always filled with emotion. And Wylie was trying to make history by sweeping all five of the matches in Class 3A. Last year they won four, boys and girls singles, mixed and boys doubles. The only one they didn't win state in was girls doubles, they finished second. This time they had a chance to do it again with players or teams in all five of the championship matches.

They day started out with boys and girls singles and mixed doubles playing all at once. Luckily they kept all three of the matches were being played on adjoining courts. That helped a little in that I wasn't having to run all over the complex, like in years past. However, with all three players winning in straight sets it did make it a little tougher to shoot, but I kind of had an idea who would win their matches first so I was able to plan a little bit of where I needed to be and when. I was surprised a little bit to see some of the celebrations, they were a little better then the others.

In addition to Wylie, we also had a boys singles player in the Class 2A championship match. The was on the other side of the stadium courts, not too far away, I was at least able to keep an eye on it to make sure I didn't miss anything. Luckily that match was pretty close so I was able to finish shooting all the early Wylie matches before moving over there to shoot it as well. Things ended up working out well, after Wylie won all three of their matches I was able to move over and shoot the last half of the second set of the 2A match, another win.

The boys and girls doubles matches were the final matches of the day. The Wylie boys and girls teams were playing on opposite sides of the stadium. This made it a little tougher, but easy enough to deal with. I started out shooting from the stands up high. It made for nice enough photos. Then I moved down to court level. They were playing on a court that also had access from the sides so I could get to court level. Both the boys and girls teams do a really good job of showing a lot of emotion throughout the season, so I knew there should be some pretty good celebrations following at least one of the matches, at least I had hoped.

The ends of both of the matches literally happened within minutes of each other. I was running back and forth trying to figure out who would win first. The girls were cruising along at first, up 4-0 and then ended up losing three straight and winning in a tiebreaker in the second set. The boys didn't go to a tiebreaker but it ended up being pretty close as well.

The girls match ended on the other team hitting a shot out and the line judge taking forever to make the call, before finally saying it was out, there was a nice little celebration, but not nearly what I was hoping for, a winner at the net would have been nice, but there was still the boys match going on leaving me hope.

I got to the boys match and had a great position courtside for the final match. I could almost breathe a sigh of relief. With six total matches and everyone having won their matches I hadn't missed one yet. Now that I didn't have any other matches to shoot I felt good about what I had so far, but now I wanted the big emotional shot. I was feeling pretty good about it now that this match was tightening up a bit and getting kind of heated. The "winner" shot that I really wanted ended up happening on the shot before match point. Then on match point I was all set and ready. The Wylie team had the momentum and were up. Then probably the worst thing could have happened, the other team double faulted, match over. Damn! I ended up going with the shot from the point before, it told the story of the match a lot better and was a nice shot. I only wish those two points would have been flip flopped. All in all, it worked out well, I ended up with some really nice frames and Wylie made history in the process becoming the first school to sweep all five matches in the same classification in the same year.

State Tennis, Day 1...

State tennis this year was a lot different from years past. Like a completely different place and city even. In the past Classes 4A/5A and Classes 2A/3A traded back and forth between playing at the University of Texas courts in downtown Austin and at Lakeway World of Tennis about 40 minutes outside Austin. The problem was, when the matches were at Lakeway, nothing ran on time and Lakeway being a private club made it pretty clear they didn't really care about state tennis being played there and it was a giant pain in the ass to both deal with the members running things, bad parking plans and things never able to stay on schedule.

This year Class 1A-3A got moved to the Texas A&M courts in College Station (Class 4A and 5A stayed at UT in Austin). And, I have to say there have been some really bad ideas made about venue changes (like the move to Lakeway in the first place), but this may have been one of the best ideas made in a long time. A&M has great facilities, they didn't charge for parking, things all ran on time and the people running things did a really great job of keeping everything running smoothly.

So, on to the competition... Wylie had their regular contingent of entries into the tournament, seven total singles and doubles teams together. We also had boys singles players in 2A from Merkel and Jim Ned. The first day of competition is a lot like the first day of regional track, there isn't a whole lot of emotion, just the players going through their matches. So, part of it is trying to get all of the local kids' matches in and just trying to find some nice action going on and any kind of reaction that may go along with it. It made for a pretty long day, but not near as long as it had been in years past since everything at least was running on time.

State Tennis, Day 2...

The second day of the state tennis tournament was hectic, to say the least. Abilene High's Erin Walker made the finals of the 5A tournament out in Lakeway and Wylie potentially could a state championship in every tennis event. So, unable to split myself in two, the plan was to go shoot the first set of Walker's match and then haul ass back to shoot what was left of the Wylie players.

By the time we got to Penick-Allison Wylie already had two state champions in girls singles and mixed doubles. Luckily we had run photos from both of them in that day's newspaper, so I didn't feel totally awful about missing them. Plus I still had three matches left to shoot. The boys singles match ended up going three sets, so at least I was able to get that one shot. One thing I do hate about shooting Wylie's players and their total dominance of Class 3A tennis, is a lot of these kids haven't won before and, in turn, just don't show a whole lot of emotion when they win a state championship... which is what I ran into this time. The one team I was hoping to win, the girls doubles team, who was showing plenty of emotion in their three-set match ended up losing a heartbreaker. Oh well, maybe next year.

State Tennis, Day 1...

This year's format for the state golf and tennis tournaments were a little different. For me all the tennis was on Monday and Tuesday, as usual, but golf was all at the end of the week. This made things a little bit easier, in that I could spend all my time focused on shooting tennis and didn't have to worry about getting out to the golf courses and figuring out the best way to split my time. Now, my only problem was the 30 mile gap between where the 3A schools were playing at UT's Penick-Allison courts and Abilene High playing in the 5A tournament at Lakeway, which I still despise.

Wylie, as usual, was taking pretty much their whole team to the state tournament. Abilene High had a singles player and a doubles team there. This would have made for a really fun couple of days, had they not been playing on opposite sides of the city. The original plan was to go to Lakeway first to shoot the Abilene High players in the first round then run back to Austin to shoot what Wylie players who had made it to the second round (which was expected to be quite a few. Well, in usual Lakeway fashion, everything got backed up. With 16 matches scheduled to be played on 12 courts, something had to give, and they something was the 11:15 match was almost two hours late. Finally I got to shoot the first set of the doubles match and was able to get on my way to make the 40 minute trip to shoot the second round at Penick-Allison, who of course, was on time, like always. During the couple hours I was there I ended up shooting five different matches. The thing I like most about Penick is the stadium styled courts which allow me to shoot from from up high as well as going down and shooting on the courts. Shooting tennis from up high is great since it allows me to with nice clean backgrounds. Since none of the high schools have stadium courts it allows for a different look than the rest of the year.

While I was at Lakeway shooting Erin Walker's singles match, it was kind of an overcast day. After getting a few nice safe shots, I figured I play around a little bit with some slow shutter shots. The great thing about tennis is you can show up and get a useable shot in just a few minutes if need be. However, if you have time to shoot the whole match it allows you to play around a little bit and experiment. I ended up getting a couple of shots I liked and a whole bunch of them that didn't work, but that's pretty much expected. Overall it wasn't too bad of a day for the first two rounds given the lack of emotion from the events.

Ho Hum, Yet Another State Title...

Wylie won its fifth straight state title in the Class 3A team tennis state this weekend. It was also the Bulldogs' 10th in 12 years. The only difference between this year and what they've done in years past is this year the team tennis tournament was held in Abilene. I thought it was kind of funny, probably the last thing the state's most dominant 3A tennis program needed was a home court advantage.

We've had really nice weather in the area the last couple of weeks, but of course this weekend with a baseball and tennis tournament scheduled it was cold and rainy. Not a great start for the first year the team tennis tournament was held in Abilene. Though it didn't really matter where it was held there was a black raincloud over the whole state this weekend, so even if it were held someplace else it would have been wet. Luckily there are a bunch of covered courts at the two local country clubs and at ACU. So, even in the rain they were able to get matches in, but instead of playing 19 matches they played nine, and they played pro sets (one 8-game set) instead of regular matches. Well, it wasn't ideal, but at least the teams got to play.

Wylie's run in the match was pretty much what was expected. They blew through all of the early matches and faced Lucas Lovejoy in the championship match. one thing about Lovejoy was they were at least expected to give them a decent match. And, a couple of them were. There were a couple good doubles matches and one good boys singles match, but again, Wylie ended up winning rather easily, only losing one match, out of the six played. Well, that was one more that they lost then last year, but still a pretty dominating performance and they won't be playing Lovejoy next year who will be moving up to 4A. Well, despite being the overwhelming favorite, there was still a nice celebration after the clinching win.

Hell Week, Day 2...

So, day two always seems to be a little easier, well at least shorter than Monday is. Mostly because tennis is only one round. So, I pretty much reversed my schedule from the day before. Going to Lakeway first to shoot the championship tennis matches. We had four different tennis players and doubles teams in championship matches. It made for some really nice photos, however, I'm guessing the two teams that did win had expected to win since there wasn't a whole lot of celebration. The plan after that would be to shoot 2A golf, hopefully quickly, then heading out to 1A golf since we would most likely have two team state champions and two individual champs.

By the time I got to Roy Kizer Golf Course (which by the way may be the ugliest golf course on the planet) where the 2A tournament was being played I had to rush to the furthest part of the course. Luckily, Jim Ned golfer Ben Avery wears a very distinct hat and I was able to spot him from half way across the golf course. I hate having to rush, I usually end up with mediocre shots from that since I'm just trying to get quick photos and move on. I followed him two holes and was lucky enough to get a ride to the other side of the course. I grabbed a few shots of the girls on the last three holes as I was pretty much walking off the course and raced across town to the other golf course.

Here's where the problems come in. I look out on the course where the boys were supposed to be coming in and it was empty. SH!T! I quickly get to the girls green, there is Baird golfer Alex Neal putting. Then a crowd of Baird fans cheering. Damn, I missed her too. I knew I needed to get SOMETHING, so I go into semi-panic mode. I follow the Baird girls around. Luckily the scores haven't been posted yet. I pretty much trained my camera on the five Lady Bears golfers. I wasn't sure if I'd get anything, but when I heard them start talking about playing their final round of high school golf ever I knew there would be emotion soon. And when the score was posted, despite what pretty much everyone was expecting, there were some surprised looks as well as genuine happy emotions. And, after the rather disappointing tennis celebrations, this worked out really well. And, as a bonus, when they did the medal ceremony I got a nice shot of the Robert Lee boys going to get there medals too. I still hate that I wasn't able to get to shoot some of the action in time, but was still glad to have gotten something.