old fire doesn't burn out! mcenroe pumps fist

now that the aussie dollar is reaching new highs, the world’s stars and performers are all heading down under… and it’s no exception for the tennis greats. the atp champions tour is in sydney for the first time in many years. with ticket prices higher than a day at the aus open, the golden oldies have better deliver!

this day the players were wilander v ferreira, mcenroe v cash…

wilander and ferreira at the net

pat cash smiles at the 'mambo goddesses'

pat cash making a point

the obligatory challenge by old mac

the mcenroe leaning tower... on 'goddess'

mcenroe consoles mate cashy after cashy needing a trainer

end of match cash v mcenroe

wilander signs autographs for fans

wilander all smiles with fans - (thanks to anon photographer)

as usual the ‘action’ stuff will be found at my usual tennis galleries, coming soon…..

edit: here’s the link to more champions downunder sydney 2010 photo gallery

better late than never! some observations around the grounds …

smiling Marcos Baghdatis

Svetlana Kuznetsova poses with young fan

Kimiko Date enjoys jogging

Dinara Safina hides in shade

Jarkko Nieminen at practice

Nadia Petrova waters plant

who? sits at practice

Frederico Gil marches out to practice

Feliciano Lopez waiting to practise

Feliciano Lopez jogs before practice

Victoria Azarenka first round

Kimiko Date first round

Azarenka/Date end of match

welcome to the WordPress version of Via’s Tennis Photos Blog!

the old blogger version will not be updated from now on. please bookmark or subscribe to this page if you will!

i will continue to post my stories, news, and interesting photos in larger format, photos that you won’t find on my ‘normal’ galleries

let me know if you have any feedback…

http://www.australianopenshop.com/prodetail.asp?proid=21993#

i have a tennis ball keyring to give away … so this is what i’ll do: the best comment posted on any of my 2010 posts on this blog, will be rewarded with this souvenir as your prize. feel free to comment before (hmm..) february 5 and the best/smartest/funniest will be the winner. don’t forget to leave an email or link to your blog for example for me to contact you if you win. please note: my decision is final, and as usual all irrelevant comments will not be published as i have moderation here.

so enjoy your read below…

donald young celebrates a point

xavier malisse celebrates a win

ping-pong style serve?

feliciano lopez shows off … again

i win !!!

oh elena, what’s happened to your pretty face?

daniela hantuchova practises hard

janko the tattoo man

animated chat

puffing andy roddick

a hot day for tommy robredo

not so great for sebastien grosjean

i’ve requested google not to index my tennis photos anymore. from now on, apart from older pics which i expect not to go away for ages, they should not be showing my new pics in their image search. if anyone wants to see them, they will have to search for them here on my site.

it’s not an easy decision to make… not long ago google image search had brought me a lot of traffic… but the last 18 months or so i have seen my site hits fall to a fraction of what they used to be. i guess i have to try something to stem the downward trend.

i have to admit that i had neglected the site somewhat, but what i had seriously neglected was the changing habits of photo searchers. not only do they use image search exclusively and just jump to individual pages if they must, some also use leeching services or tools to download the photos without even seeing the source web page.

as google allows this to happen, i’d rather have fewer people seeing my pics, than to have done the equivalent of uploading them all to a ubiquitous photo server without any claim to the photos. apart from the watermark and the copyright notice on the pics of course.. (haha you can’t get away from them, can you???) though i’ve come across some so-called webmasters who don’t seem to care!

i don’t object to people seeing my pics, saving them, sharing them around privately, and so on. but i do like them to come to my website, be presented with the photos the way i prefer, read the copyright, and ask for permission if they want to use them publicly. if they want to donate by clicking on some ads, or even buying some cards, that’s cool. it’s simple and for most it’s free. if even that is too much work and someone wants to harvest and digest images without any respect to those who take them, then i’m out of this game.

so now you know, if you don’t see me around on google images any more.