Photo: © Edgar Su - Carlos' Shadow Hits A Ball
A shadow image of Spanish tennis player Carlos Alcaraz's racket perfectly striking the ball has won the top prize at the Canon-sponsored World Sports Photography Awards.
Edgar Su's photograph Carlos' shadow hits a ball is the winner of the 2026 edition. The photograph was taken during Alcaraz's fourth-round tennis match against Britain's Jack Draper at the 2025 Australian Open in Melbourne, Australia.
As the only global sports awards dedicated exclusively to sports photography, the entries represent work by the world's best professional sports photographers.
The winning photograph leads a collection of 24 category-winning images spanning more than fifty sports, including American football, track and field, baseball, equestrian sports, golf, racket sports, winter sports, and soccer.
This year's edition is the most successful in the competition's history. A record 23,130 photographs were submitted by 4,120 photographers from 123 countries, confirming the Awards' status as one of the world's most internationally diverse and widely recognized sports photography competitions.
The exceptional quality and diversity of this year's entries emphasize that, even amid rapid technological advances, the photographer's eye and craftsmanship remain paramount. Sports photographers around the world continue to innovate, inspire, and push the medium's creative boundaries.
Richard Shepherd, Senior Manager, Product Marketing Imaging at Canon Europe: "The images recognized this year show photographers at their most creative, pushing boundaries, seeing differently, and capturing sport in ways we have not seen before. Canon's role is to support that creativity with equipment photographers can rely on under pressure, enabling them to create something different in the most demanding moments."
All winning photographs can be viewed on the World Sports Photography Awards website.
