this past week (2-8 january), abby and i went to the chennai open, the largest atp tournament in asia. it was a week of some amazing tennis. the finals came down to the 1st and 4th seeds, janko tipsarevic of serbia and milos raonic of canada (pictured in that order as they entered the stadium). tipsarevic was the better all-around player; raonic had a lot of trouble placing his shots – i lost count of the number of unforced errors he made – but he also had a killer serve that was almost always unreturnable.  each of the three sets ended with tiebreaks, and raonic finally wore tipsarevic down to take the final tiebreak 7-2.

the competitors enter the stadium. tipsarevic definitely had the intensity, but not the brute strength of raonic, whose 35 aces often left tipsarevic in the position shown in this last photo. (note the speed: 225 km/h)

it was not easy shooting from the stands, especially with a slower lens. watching the guys courtside, i definitely had lensvy.