Tennis players never shy to practice shirtless.But when it comes to photo shoot, some of them find unbuttoning their shirts for the 2009 ATP World Tour Player Calendar almost proved too much.
French photographer Corrine Dubreuil revealed, "Marcos Baghdatis (Mr April) was very shy at the beginning. He was not comfortable, so he told me he would only take off his shirt if everybody left the studio.
"When I started to take the photos, Marcos started to dance to the music and take off the shirt very slowly in a very sexy way, like a belly dance. When everybody returned, he did an Andrew Ilie or Pat Rafter by tearing his shirt to pieces!"
Baghdatis joined 13 other players from each region of the world for the shoot, from the camera savvy Tommy Robredo and Fernando Verdasco – who have both appeared naked in Cosmopolitan Magazine in support of the Everyman Male Cancer Campaign – to Tomas Berdych, Bob and Mike Bryan, Fernando Gonzalez, Tommy Haas, Ivan Ljubicic, Paul-Henri Mathieu, Juan Monaco, Paradorn Srichaphan, Dmitry Tursunov and Mikhail Youzhny.Dubreuil shot the classic and striking monochrome photographs for the player calendar in Paris, during the ATP Masters Series event last year. Toutchai U-Bol was on hand to photograph Srichaphan in Bangkok.
"By far the most seductive player was Tursunov. He kept playing with my camera and flirting with the make-up artist Vinca! He was great and easy to shoot."
Check out Tursunov in the video! Sexy!
But Dubreuil's favourite is Verdasco. He said, "What a body! He got so involved in the shoot and knew exactly which photographs were the best."
Fans will be able to view the photographs at the W Hotel in Times Square, New York, during the US Open fortnight.
(Via ATP.com)
