This is the story of six strangers meeting to watch tennis at Wimbledon 2000 and having a bloody marvelous time together. I think we need some music for the occasion...

Thank you. Much better.

Why Magüi Mania?

While we all went to Wimbledon 2000 to cheer for Arantxa, there are other players that we love. We all liked Magüi Serna, so we decided to cheer for her too. After her first match and realising that her second round match was probably to be her last, we decided to go to her second round match: Center Court, Wimbledon, vs. Mary Pierce.

And did we have the time of the Championships! Not even us expected Magüi to win, but she did. Boy, did she! we were screaming so loudly we were on tv half of the time. The commentator called us the Serna-Mania. And Mel decided that we would be Magüi Mania.

The Original Maniacs from 2000: Who are we?

We are Caroline (aka Caz) from UK, Stacey from Australia, Caroline (aka Kat) from US, Melissa (aka Mel) from UK, Paula from UK, and myself, Beatriz, from Spain.

You may wonder what could we all have in common. Well, it's Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario. Maybe you wonder how we met? Have you heard those people that say that only strange people meet through the Internet? well, they are right on their money! We met (more or less) through the Internet.

Caz rules one of the most well-known ASV sites on the Internet La casa de Arantxa, and we all knew each other from her site. Caz knew each of us, and some of us knew each other too.

The first meeting took place in Roland Garros 2000, where Caz, Stacey and myself (Beatriz) met to cheer together for Arantxa. Then, I had to go back to Spain (to real life!) and Stacey and Caz went to Eastbourne, where they met Paula and Mel, another two big Arantxa fans. Finally, we all went together to Wimbledon 2000, where we met Caroline (aka Kat) for the first time.

The New Maniacs: from 2001 onwards

Wimbledon 2001 brought new maniacs to our group: Sian from Wales, and Sandrine (a rugby ball -- this is a loooong story, you don't really want to know about it!).

::[ Note from the Webmistress: Sian has insisted I clarify that she is *not* a rugby ball. Sandrine is the rugby ball. I hope everything is clear now ]::