Professional athletes live a life most of us can't really imagine, let alone identify with. They train year round, travel the world, have a team of hired coaches around them and are paid by performance in the most competitive occupation in the world... kind of hard to place yourself in their shoes.

However, these athletes aren't all that different from you and me! Antsy elementary kids waiting for recess with outsized dreams of one day representing your country on the world's biggest stage. These are just the few that made it, the ones living that dream!

We brought an empathetic tone to the fast paced, elegant and - for most - unattainable heights of the best tennis in the world.

As mentioned above, athletes have a lot on their plate! With just over an hour with each athlete, we deployed a 3 camera setup allowing for engaging handheld shots, gliding gimbal shots and buttery smooth footage on sticks by the long lens to all be captured at once. Oh, and we didn't forget the drone.

Both tennis and individual athlete research allowed us to direct the shoot uniquely for each athlete. We flagged off a mid-day interview to make the best of our overhead sun and moved our athletes around the court to simulate matchplay while also manipulating the ever changing sun to play on our team.

Professional athletes generally don't prefer to be on camera as it disrupts their normal flow.. remember they've practiced these shots the same way for 1000's of hours, so it's our job to allow them to be themselves, have some fun on-set while also not being a distraction or disrupting their mental space with the famed Indian Wells Masters just days away.

Dunlop Tennis social accounts will be promoting both the sponsored athletes and their racquets simultaneously leading to that sought after response of... "I want to be like them! I should use a Dunlop racquet!"

It's not in your face, it doesn't come across as a sales pitch, it just showcases the life of the Dunlop brand. It's been worth being apart of for the last 100 years, we'll take our chances that it's worth it for the next 100 years as well.

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