A lot of you email me about 'MTF,' which I never really had been to. Last time I went there, I thought my eyes were going to start to bleed, but I decided to give it another chance.
I went to menstennisforums.com expecting pedantic discussions of topspin forehands or a coverup for a Marat Safin fan fiction page, which is what I thought it was last time. I was ready to laugh at crazy tennis fans, players who considered themselves the next Nadal or people who sat around at work looking at shirtless pictures of Novak Djokovic (there’s a lot of them).
But that’s not really what it is at all. It’s a bizarre place, but by parts it was enlightening, amusing and informative. I did sit around and read a lot of fun name-calling between Nadal and Federer fans (how many rounds of debate can there be? apparently months worth.); oddly enough, their fans at MTF seem to hate each other more than Roger and Rafael do.
But they are a strange lot. Among the millions of inside jokes that they have, including the fact that at some point, they decided that Carlos Moya was some kind of religious figure (I still don't understand this), that Marat Safin should be nicknamed 'hippo' and that Oscar Hernandez (?) was the king of tennis. Everyone discusses players girlfriends, whether they smoke (SPOTTED: DAVID FERRER) and even which players were cuter as a baby. I guess I could also mention that the 2007 French Open final thread contained ___ posts or that people were on discussing tennis until 4 or 5 in the morning local time. And we could all sit here and laugh about people that were obsessed by players they didn’t know or a sport that some didn’t play.
But I guess we all have little obsessions, small fetishes that no one else would understand. And finding people that also recognize and understand those fixations is like finding an extended family, united by one interest that the rest of the world might laugh at.
And that’s what I saw. An extended family, whether arguing over Federer and Nadal or arguing over the hottest tennis player (Marat seems to reign undisturbed here, let's hope he can channel that in tennis matches). People from America, Bosnia, Serbia, Brazil, South Africa, India, France, Belgium and a million other places discuss current tournaments, woes of their national tennis coverage, their favorite players, the matches of the day – even discussing more serious matters, everything from car crashes to wartime experiences. I read about the bombing of Serbia, people recovering from diseases, the Polish reaction to the missile defense system in that country. Real friends, real discussions, real affection, all with people that they might never meet or talk to in person.
It’s a good source of information. There are articles in many different languages with someone always willing to translate them for you. Without it, I would never have learned about Richard Gasquet's supposed gay affair (everyone denies it, but stories like these have to believed on faith) or that Radek Stepanek and Martina Hingis were engaged (how beautiful and touching!!). Find your favorite player, and there are stores of information about them in individual sections.
When I finished skimming some sections, I felt oddly warm inside. Everyone wasn’t nice and everyone wasn’t smart, but most people were characters; at times I was learning a lot and at times, I was falling on the floor with laughter (particularly in places called ‘If the ATP were a gay bar, who would hook up with whom?’ and ‘The Grass is for cows, smoking, fodder, football pitches & anti-grass tennis Thread’). There are posters that have a future as models, tennis girlfriends (I hear of openings in the Safin box for hundreds of you), stand-up comics, and more legitimately as tennis journalists, writers and directors of tournaments. It’s a good place and while I wouldn't want to move there, I recommend visiting. I hear the trees are lovely in September.
thirty.love1@gmail.com
