Shutterstock Shot Of The Month: May 2024
‘Shot of the Month’ is brought to you by FEVO Sport Industry Awards partner Shutterstock. In this ongoing image-led series, we turn the spotlight on those behind the lens. Telling the story of the standout photos that grace newspapers, magazines and digital screens around the world from the photographer’s point of view.
KING OF THE CLAY
JAVIER GARCIA, Shutterstock Sport Photographer
27th May 2024
The King of Clay leaves his favourite surface after a first-ever first round defeat in Roland Garros.
It was always touch and go whether we would ever see Rafael Nadal playing competitive tennis again, so his appearance in Paris was a pleasant surprise to us all. However, having barely played in 2023, his ranking plummeted to around 300 in the world. For some, it was a controversial decision to not seed him and protect him early in the tournament. This was exacerbated further when he was drawn to play World Number 4 Alexander Zverev in the opening round — the odds were very much against him but you knew with Nadal that he would give everything to try and win.
As soon as it became clear that this wasn’t going to be, understandably, the same Nadal that I had photographed for the last 20 years, my thoughts turned to how best to pictorially represent both his loss and, potentially, his last ever appearance. This was his 116th match in the tournament and he won a remarkable 112. I was aware that this needed something special but as ever with sports photography, you can think and plan as much as you like but you need that little bit of extra luck. Luckily, today was my day.
Fortunately, the French Open is one of the best events to work at for photographers as we are free to work both courtside as well as high up in the stands of Philippe Chatrier Court. My plan was to get a relatively simple image of Nadal trudging off, racquet bag on his shoulder and lots of clay around him as he left the surface he has made his own for so many years but working upstairs comes with a few risks. Members of the public can inadvertently get in your way, which is perfectly understandable and a “floating” television camera “Spidercam” swoops around the court held up with high tension wire so there is a chance that you end up with nothing for your troubles…
The first few days of Roland Garros this year saw some pretty grim weather (it reminded me of the delayed lockdown event which took place at the end of September 2020 in an empty venue shooting with four layers on and wearing a wooly hat and gloves!) so the majority of week one saw us playing under the closed roof. Unusually, but not surprisingly, Nadal was interviewed on court after the match (ordinarily only the winner gets an on-court interview but this is Rafa!). During the course of the interview, the roof began to slowly open to reveal oval pools of sunlight onto the dark court but they weren’t in the right spot as they were emerging near the centre of the court. I had quickly mentally written these off as a chance to photograph him in tasty light.
But luck was with me… he must have briefly lost his bearings, which given his familiarity with the venue was pretty ironic, and instead of walking off in a straight line he appeared to drift towards the middle of the court straight into one of these pools of light before correcting his course. Bingo! The shot would have been nice enough but if I were being fussy I’d love him to do something! For a split second, he raised his right arm to bid farewell to Paris and I knew at that moment that I had managed to capture something special…
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