Of the scores of photographers from across the globe snapping thousands upon thousands of photos at this year’s US Open, one image has stood out above all the others so far at the tennis grand slam in New York.
A slight imbalance from seventh-seed Jasmine Paolini and a relentlessly steady hand allowed photographer Ray Giubilo to nail a one-in-a-million shot at Flushing Meadows this week.
Paolini hailed it as “maybe the picture of the year”, but the whimsical image taken during the Italian player’s first-round encounter with Australia’s Destanee Aiava could lay claim to an even grander title than that.
Tennis photography isn’t known for its sense of humour. The images are often clean, sharp and intense but rarely are they hilarious. A nanosecond later or before would have rendered a completely different frame and missed the pure comedic value behind Giubilo’s image.
Half terrifying and half sublime, the image was captured by complete fluke. Giubilo told the Guardian he had “been waiting for a long time for something like this”, and that he knew what a great image he had taken the moment he saw it on the back of his Nikon Z9.
The only way Giubilo was able to line up the shot so perfectly was due to Paolini being off balance when she finished her forehand stroke. “She just moved the racket back in a way that she normally doesn’t do,” he said. When he attempted to capture the same image the following night, frame after frame it could not be replicated.
Paolini was so enamoured of the shot, she singled out Giubilo the next time she was on court for a second-round match to express her admiration.
“Tonight after the match when she won, I was sitting underneath her box and she ran towards the box, smiling as she always does, and I thought she was going to go and hug her coach. But she came to me instead and she gave me five and said, ‘Great photo.’”
Before becoming a professional photographer Giubilo was an agent for a tennis clothing company in Australia. His passion was always photography, and with the help of people such as John Newcombe and John Alexander he moved into photographing local matches. Thirty-seven years later he spends seven months a year travelling the tennis circuit, shooting up to 20 matches a day over gruelling 14-hour shifts.
Patience, creative flair and impeccable technical ability is what defines amazing sports photographers; sitting still for hours while watching match after match, all while remaining laser focused on each hit. “You have to be patient, you have to be fast, you have to be fit,” he said.
