The Magüi Maniacs at the Madrid Open 2001!!

Part 1 - Madrid

As I sit here writing at 2:20am on July 17th, it seems hard to believe that my tennis season only began 3 months ago - it seems like a lifetime away, though, with the next breath some memories are so fresh it feels like only yesterday.

Sunday 20th May - 4pm - touchdown at Madrid Airport. It really had started. I was met by Bea and her (wonderful!) sister, Maria and the first stop was the tennis center. The draw wasn't up but I didn't care; I knew Magüi was playing and that was good enough for me! The sun was beating down on the red clay - not to mention my red and yellow hair! - I was in superb company and play would begin in 17 hours. Heaven.

Monday was so exciting - I had been waiting since the begining of July for this and it was really happening. Bea introduced me to a group of her friends who remained with us for the week; Sonia, Paula and Silvia, 3 of Magüi's biggest fans; Graciela and Juan who made it their life's purpose to torture me and not let me enjoy watching Arantxa; and Charo who made it her life's purpose to take care of me - which I didn't mind one bit!

So we did the introductions, grabbed a copy of the draw and order of play and we were off! Oh, I should mention at this stage that I had been in the grounds under an hour before I embarrassed myself - I don't think that beat my previous record though! On seeing "Raymond/Stubbs" in the top seed position on the draw sheet I was so delighted to see they were playing that I may have, kind of sort of screamed "Yes! Rennae's playing! Come on Stubbsy!" at some volume not realizing that Lisa Raymond was less than 10 feet away (that's 3 meters for those of you who are metric ;-) ) - she really didn't appear to be too impressed!

Monday really did turn out to be great. Bea's mates were fantastic company, the weather was beautiful and the draw was looking increasingly good. Magüi was seeded, Lisa and Rennae were playing in the doubles, but the best thing and the nicest surprise was that Arantxa had decided to play after all and was seeded 2. The day also saw the arrival of Giselle, which was great for me as that saw the total number of people at the tournament whose first language was English go up to 7! No, it was genuinely good to see Giselle after almost a year.

The next day brought more good weather and good times; we watched Magüi hit a few balls and saw Lisa and Rennae in practice before taking a little light relief in the heat, laughing as Pato Tarabini acted up for my camcorder. Then there was the incident involving my camera and a certain dolphin tattoo!

Pretty much every day there was great tennis, good company and amazingly hot weather. Certain days there were moments that made the trip just that little bit more special but it's hard to remember when and how they all occurred; they all just seem to congeal into one great memory.

One day, it was so hot that we were constantly pouring bottles of water over our heads and necks when we came up with a bright idea: Why not ask one of the guys hosing the clay to hose us down whist they were at it? we were only kidding, Bea! She asked one of them and he did! We loved it! Unfortunately Patricia Tarabini didn't. What we didn't realise was that she was standing just behind us and was getting almost as wet as us and Señor Hose couldn't hear her screams of dismay over our shrieks of delight. Ooops!

The day Maria came to the tennis after work was pretty funny. We were watching a doubles match, Anabel Medina and Mariajo Martinez against Pato and Nicole Pratt. Of course we were cheering for the latter pair; Pato is one of our official legends (in joke) and Nicole was one of the seven people whose Mother Tongue was English! ;-) The match was going pretty well, there was some good tennis being played and we were enjoying ourselves despite the fact that Pato and Pratty lost the first set. Pato was being a joker as per usual but was playing some amazing touch shots and thanks to our pretty (over)exuberant cheering Pratty was getting really pumped up in the second set. As you can tell, we found the match to be really entertaining, but Maria was the Entertainment! Martinez netted a crucial ball and Medina, very uncharacteristically ;-), started shouting and screaming and stamping her little feet, so Maria helpfully yelled out "hit her with your racket!" much to everybody's amusement - and mine and Pratty's once Bea and Pato picked themselves up off the floor to translate for us!

And you should have seen the look on Magüi's face when Bea asked her to sign that picture for this Website too! That made my week! Bea asked her to dedicate it to Magüi Mania and she immediately put her head down and started writing with a look that was a mixture of embarrassment and utter disgust! So, we asked her, "do you know what Magüi Mania is?" and we kind of squeezed a bashful half smile out of her as she nodded wide-eyed (you know, the kind of look you give someone who has just escaped from a lunatic asylum! ;-)) and said simply "yes"!

Every day that Lisa Raymond played was an experience! We (Bea and I) were the only two people in the place cheering that is if you don't count Rennae! But she could hardly cheer for herself when they were playing doubles! I felt kind of bad when it came to the quarterfinals and I cheered for Arantxa instead of Lisa not that she'd have noticed! We did still have a Lisa Raymond cheering core at one end of our camp though, with Silvia making banners and cheering for all her life was worth. Traitor! J

The doubles final was the worst of it. Rennae and Lisa played Vivi Ruano (love ya Virginia!) and Poala Suarez - there were literally only the two of us cheering for team Stubbsy-Raymond. The crowds were really harsh which tarnished an otherwise great match but we still stole their names from the scoreboard as a souvenir!

But the greatest moment of them all was watching Arantxa lift that trophy. It was such a great time! seeing my idol come through and win her 29th career title on home turf in front of her home crowd and to have watched her do it every step of the way - what a buzz! I get goose pimples just thinking about it!

It would have been great to see Magüi pick up her first tournament win there but there is plenty of time for you, Magüi. And don't worry, us Maniacs will be there cheering you on again next year! };-)