Top tennis players Nadal, Gulbis, Federer, Tsonga & Davidenko sign and see Ivanovs paintings in Qatar Open February 08

After the huge success of the Art Of Tennis campaign at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals last year, art and tennis have combined again this week in Doha, where the “Lights On” campaign has been organized by Ernests Gulbis’ sister, Elina Gulbe

Presented by the Qatar Tennis Federation and the Qatar ExxonMobil Open, “Lights On” is a collection of 10 large scale portraits of the world’s top tennis players by Latvian artist Ritums Ivanovs. The portraits are of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Robin Soderling, Nikolay Davydenko, Andy Murray, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Fernando Verdasco, Marcos Baghdatis and Ernests Gulbis.

Encouraged by Gulbis, a number of players, including Davydenko and Tsonga, have already been to the VIP Village onsite to see the paintings of themselves  

Through his collection, Ivanovs hopes to reveal a glimpse of the individuality of the players and their personalities. The young artist, whose work was sold for the first time at Sotheby’s London in June 2009, strived for a mixture of photographic realism and impressionist-like brush strokes to achieve an accurate depiction of light and movement, which he hopes will draw the viewers’ attention to “the shimmering and bright light of the tennis court, which focuses on each player’s unique side and emotional state.”

Further info: Article "Art & Tennis Combine In Doha "Lights On" Exhibition" by ATP Staff on 05.01.2011