On a hot summer afternoon in April 1989, I was assigned to cover a local junior tennis tournament and I knew I would not get much space for the photograph. The major attraction was the participation of the BAT trainees. The Amritraj brothers had set up the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Academy (BAT) to identify young tennis talent in India and give them intensive coaching.
I decided to shoot vertical and get the racquet as close to the body as possible, instead of a shot with the racquet outstretched so that even a single-column photograph would look good. I looked at the schedule and found that Asif Ismail, a BAT trainee who later played for India, was to play in one of the courts. I positioned myself at the sidelines and trained my telephoto lens on Ismail.
Ismail was down; perhaps the heat had taken a toll on him. He was throwing tantrums, kicking the ball, banging his racquet and constantly muttering to himself. Gesturing, he tried to shoo me off. I ignored him and stood my ground. He couldn’t ask me to leave, as I was in my allotted place. He missed a few easy returns and each time he glared at me, as though I was the cause. I was more interested in his tantrums than his game and I kept my focus on him. Then it happened! He missed an easy volley and, by intuition, I focussed my lens on his face. Asif stuck his tongue out and made a face at me. I caught him right in the centre of the frame. I shot a few frames of his opponent K.G. Ramesh a youngster from Coimbatore, and rushed back to my office, not only to develop my roll but also to catch my sports editor before he left.
Asif lost the match. Normally only the winner’s photograph is published. In this case, the fancied player had lost and it was all the more reason for the winner’s photograph to be published. I requested my sports editor to carry Asif’s picture instead and, seeing the photograph, he agreed. This goes to show that good photographs can be shot even in a local school tournament, and not necessarily only at the Olympics or international events.
