Thanks for the comments! It's not so much about eye, more about shooting enough frames to get a few keepers. Then again, I'm pretty sure that's how pro sports photographers work as well
You have a good eye for action shots and I also how like the shallow depth of field isolates the foreground players. However, the high sun angle really diminishes the overall impact of these shots. In order to compensate for that you would have had to expose for the shadowed faces, which would have overexposed the rest. It was a no-win situation. The only way around that, short of having brought powerful strobes or huge light reflectors with you, would have been to shoot in early morning or late afternoon.
Yes, that was the second thing I noticed in dismay - first was the non-descript beach resort background which I tried to de-emphasize with tight framing, wide aperture and shooting towards the sea when possible.
The final shots you see have various levels of fill light applied to bring out the players' faces. The other option would have been to expose for the faces and let the higlights blow out, which in retrospect might have been at least worth trying. Strobes and reflectors are not really an option for obvious reasons, and the matches were all during the afternoon.
Was quite well the effort, though, and I might visit some other matches to get some more mileage on the 135mm. Need to bring sunscreen next time
