I followed tennis long before the internet, let alone tennis forums and social media.

Tennis discussions took place in small groups, among enthusiasts who knew each other, and certainly not every day, nor for every tournament of the year, nor to repeat the same thing over and over again or announce and repeat statistiques and percentages as an idiot.
It could have been watching a final on TV together with chips and soda, but how can I put it... it would have been unthinkable to go and give my opinion on a live thread during the match to give my opinion...


So I admit that this "new space for discussion" with forums and the most extremists fan bases, along with the most annoying and ignorant trolls between anonymous (and their virtual need to exist in this mode) , was a brutal change.
However, it also allowed me to exchange in an interesting way with other users who knew "my" eras, and how they experienced these moments.


That said, with Big 3, I've been accustomed to this way of communicating for 20 years, so I've gotten the hang of it easily, and I'd say that fan bases have absolutely no importance in my assessment of players.

 

Every fanbase attracts a loud, very vocal minority of chronically online hooligans. I voted ‘no’ because most of the fans do not even know what ‘MTF’ is and do not engage with hooliganism.

The hooliganism will be dictacted by the proportion of these hooligans on MTF and their personal gripe with players.

I imagine the results will soon show high numbers for Novak because some of his following on here are on the verge of being committed to a mental institution (their friend PavvyG is already there if you look at his twitter right now).

Soon to join them are a mixture of Big 3 nostalgia bros who still cling to their fantasies of Sinner being a discount Berdych that would be trashed by the “strong era in their prime” and would vote Sinner. Some deranged Alcaraz fans will vote Sinner simply because they fully expected a three-peat on Sunday which did not materialize, and Sinner roundly spanking the already anointed magical baby GOAT of MTF also explains the sudden quiet nature on this board from some over the past couple of days.

 

I hated Kohlschreiber fan base

 

Which one, Franz or Harald?

 

Novak fans tend to be the worst. The player himself is usually OK.

 

Not the case of Nick, he is a total ass and his fan basses were also ass#les..

 

No but there was definitely a time a few years ago where Djokotards were really testing me on that.

 

Well you should considering Novax MTOkovic screwed your idol out of an AO Title in 2015 when he decided to go off court for 15-20 minutes to put Murray off his game. Which happened, Murray collapsed and Faker won in 4. Imagine if this was the scenario in the Wimbledon SF and Sinner did this to Pencilegg then won in 4 after losing the 2nd set and being dominated at the start of the 3rd. RodLaverSlam, HeroCopMark, and Johnnywankovic would all be screaming blue murder and PMing death threats to Jannik on X and Instagram.

 

However, I must admit that non-stop bashing of a player can end up making me view him with sympathy.
And often this comes from a fan base of haters.

Even if I had no affinity for him before.

This happened to me on another forum with Lendl haters. It's clear that as a Mats fan, and given Ivan's game, I had nothing in common with this sad Czech... and I found myself defending his record.

As I still do today with Connors and McEnroe, even though I was a Borg fanboy.

More recently, the end of Nadal's career provoked so much sarcasm and mockery here from his haters that I also found myself defending his record... a real shame for me, a Maestro admirer, as some Nadaltard fan base was also unbearable and annoying.

And currently, I'm more a Carlos fan ofc. I was indifferent to Sinner tbh, but for the past year, constant cream bashing on him has made me see him with kindness and sympathy , as well as his behavior in defeat and victory.
Note: Carlos is also very good too, in defeat,
even if it's his first time in a slam final, something he hadn't experienced before.

 

I’ll be honest. I was use to admire Novak (and Rafa of course) even though I was a Federer dye hard fan. I detected a radical change on that opinion about the serb since Sinner was attacked. So I voted yes.

 

No. And people, who do are...

 

And about what florentine wrote, i must agree. I wrote it myself once. i’ve been lurking this forum for a dozen years feeling I had no need to subscribe or intervene because I liked reading many members interesting insight and I thought there was nothing more to add to discussions. As it started turning into a troll fest and quality forumers became more reluctant to post ,things changed for me. I felt the urge to challenge trolls. Basically I felt into their traps and I subscribed.

 

By the way, (question to the old members) what happened to Budai?

 

The people in the stands yelling "ROOOOOGEEEER" are pretty pointless. Similar to "GOOO RAAAFAAA" but much less irritating.

 

No.
I have huge respect and admiration for Djokovic.

His fanbase is horrible (a good chunk of it), but it is not his fault

 

Players don't choose who take up supporting them, so you can't fault any player for random people registering at MTF and/or having a Twitter account and proclaiming there's only one tennis player worth worshiping. The other way around is trickier (people that have a disliking of a player), sometimes with arguably valid arguments why said players are putting their sport in discredit, but there's also the kind or people that are addicted to obsessive name calling, using juvenile incomprehensible placeholders. This thread will bring up some of the latter and will quickly make them join my MTF ignore list.

 

I thought this was going to be a Fonseca thread

 

No, but I have come around to liking certain players because of how deranged their haters are

 

it of course happens tho. the likes of moozza managed to singlehandedly piss off half of the nole fan base for example, for he is such a deranged individual.

 

No I haven't.
But the British media did put me off Murray.

 

Moozza is also off putting of course, but he's not so much a fan base as an isolated loon.

Anyway, I feel kinda fond of Moozza himself. He just puts me (and many others, I'm sure) off Murray....

 

I'm never going to hate a player just because of his/her fanbase, but it can definitely make me like them less in some cases. One notable example on the men's side - the overrated Brazilian.

There's only one case where I despise both the player and the fanbase. And I guess most of you know exactly which player and fanbase I'm talking about...

 

Its nothing more annoying than french popopopoppooo.....
Only worse is Chiles CHI CHI le le Chile.

And I'm not even Fonsecas fan, just waiting If he will rise as a good player.

 

I like Fonseca's tennis style, but obnoxious Brazilian crowds screaming his name and treating him like the messiah every match is pretty off-putting.

 

So true, but I have watched him encourage the obnoxious behavior with the Brazilians even when the umpire was begging them to stop. I lost all respect for him .

 

@TooMuchRaquet A player has no control over their fans' behaviour but, in this social media age, I would say that a player can certainly encourage certain types of behaviour.

 

But players can't do it right on social media, no matter what they do, the idiots are never satisfied.
Just an example from discussions seen here at MTF: some so-called fans get angry when their own favorite wins and other top players don't immediately after a won final put a "congrats" on each of their Twitter/Instagram/flavor-of-the-year-silliness. I mean, the kind of top players that actually have each others phone numbers and are perfectly capable to personally congratulate their peers (which they probably do at what they know is the most appropriate time). But so-called fans demand other players to go in "look at me!"-mode and congratulate others on their own social media, while other so-called fans then start complain about those players for trying to steal their thunder.

 

Some of the most famous earlier Fedfans were absolutely unbearable and full of arrogance, was quite hard to not be influenced by it..

 

Nope. I'm a fan of tennis first and any favorite players I have, its not like I have a problem with a fanbase. I may not like players for things they do off the court but that has nothing to do with fans.. I see sometimes that other fans will be pissed that a player will have fans and that's weird to me.

I also enjoy being a 'hater' but that's more so in team sports. if you're on social media, its fun to jab with other fans but its never personal.

 

I dislike both Nadal and his fans. They were way too arrogant and personally attacking in many cases.

@FlyingSaucer There were just more stories, even on this board. NadalALOT was permabanned due to death threats, I was stalked by a certain member (whom I won't name here and I needed to get involved the moderation team to stop it!).
There have been numerous occasions where Nadaltards really overstepped the normal communication (not just here, also on Tennis Twitter/X or on other platforms). Djokotards may have been worse at trolling, but they didn't make such fuzz about defending their idol at all costs, going overboard with personal attacks.

 

This is damn true, I noticed even now after Sinner's defeat by Alcaraz at RG that the Italians went crazy and wrote various worrying messages on Alcaraz's Instagram profile. If you write to them that Sinner is a doper, they send a lot of insults and threaten to sue.

Djokovic's fans don't have that experience of sending threats, probably because Novak rarely lost.

 

Not solely because of a fan base.
Tennis is an odd sport where who you choose to support, not support or are indifferent is complex and not always easy to explain.