Sydney ParaOlympics Tennis

Saturday October 28, 2000. Men’s Wheelchair Tennis Final, Sydney Paralympics. With Tokyo coming to a close last week, I thought I would reflect on a couple of pictures from the Sydney Paralympics and specifically the Men’s Wheelchair final.

Sydney in 2000 was all about the Olympics, for the most part, the entire city was suddenly sport fanatics. In the lead up there were people who took up discounted flights and out of town holidays, but for the most part everyone was on board.

The Olympics went off without a hitch and then 2 weeks later the Paralympics were held. Ticket sales were equally as strong, but they were also heavily reduced in price to attract people to attend.  On top of session specific tickets, general admission, day passes were made available, allowing people to watch a mix of sports at a mixture of Olympic Park venues across the day for what was essentially a token price - $15 an adult ticket.

Having attended both versions of the Sydney Olympics, I have always said that the Paralympics should be held first, this will attract more international visitors who arrive early for able bodied games, I also allows the local public, who have all got the Olympic bug, to attend and show their support, and finally it acts as the biggest of test events for the larger able-bodied games. The Paralympic athletes deserve to compete and shine in front of full stadiums, and although things are changing, there is still that obvious divide between the two. This small change would put the focus on the Paralympics at the expense of the able, even if only for a day.

With that said, prior to the games we purchased 2 days of general admission tickets as well as tickets to the Men’s gold medal tennis match. The session involved the men’s singles and ladies’ doubles finals. 

As luck would have it, David Hall would play in the men’s final and Daniela Di Toro and Branka Pupovac would play in the women’s doubles – all from Australia, so we were going to see Australians medal!  Furthermore, our seats were Row 1, front row, looking straight over the railing onto the court floor. From a photographer perspective you could not get much better – mind you, I was very conscious of shutter noise. Shooting still on film though, did mean being selective with what I shot. I did however have with me, a state of the art 1 megapixel Kodak digital camera, complete with 8Mb memory card and brand new AA batteries – it had a maximum capacity of 72 photos on that 8Mb card.

For all the sport that I watch, I’m not a huge tennis fan, maybe it’s the silence, length of time or the lack of local success. So, on this day I did not know what to expect. I did however know that, at the time, David Hall was ranked #1 in the world and a star in his own right – but that was it!

In choosing photos to highlight, one instantly came to mind, to me it is as iconic as it is minimalist as it is a once in a life time moment – only to those that know it

David Hall’s racquet & glasses

David Hall had just won the gold medal in 3 sets, throwing his racquet, hat and sunglasses off in celebration before going to congratulate his opponent. Here they lie!

I’d seen version of this sort of thing done with other sports, helmets, bats or boots just left on a field. Here was my iconic picture, that I have not seen captured by anyone else.

The second picture is pure emotion, Hall realising that he has just climbed the mountain. He is now Olympic Champion and no one will be able to take that away from him! I doubt that he would have expected anyone to capture these tears, just as much as I doubt that he would actually care.

David Hall Olympic Champion

After the excitement of Hall’s win, Di Toro and Pupovac were to play, sadly after going to a tie break in the first set, they went down in the second quite convincingly. A silver medal though is still a huge achievement and one that both can be proud of, as much as those in attendance were!

It was then time for the medal presentations. An Olympic games, a home Olympics, a medal presentation, a local gold medal winner, our National anthem – tick tick tick tick and tick, this was as good as it could get. 

The medal presentations were at the far end of the court; however, the flags were right in front of our seats. Manned by members of the armed forces, the flags were treated with the military precision and respect that you often see on television. That was then followed Advance Australia Fair. Again, this was as good as it could get for local sporting fans – regardless if they (I) were huge tennis fans or not!

Flag ceremony

Daniela and Branka then followed, and although they did not get to sing our anthem, they were as equally proud and equally successful as David was, and as equally well received! On this day, they were the second-best ladies wheelchair tennis team in the world.

The photo I have highlighted here is both significant of their achievement but also to highlight the first digital picture of significance. It is not great and has an ugly date stamp all over it as was the trend and desire of the time – mind you, it may not look great, but accurate dates can help all these years later! It doesn’t really help if the date or time is wrong through!

Daniela Di Toro and Branka Pupovac Olympic Silver medalists

Here’s hoping that not only will we be able to attend sport again soon, but personally, I would welcome the chance to shoot our current crop of tennis stars, both able bodied and wheelchair athletes. The chances of getting such a quality seat, for a quality match, including our locally grown stars though, might well be pushing my luck.