manco la foto si trova di lui

Perhaps Dee has earned the right to be bracketed with such global sporting icons as ski-jumping’s Eddie the Eagle or swimming’s Eric the Eel.

	Good to be bad: Has Robert Dee joined the likes of Eddie the Eagle?

Dee said last night he had found his new fame “a bit odd”, but raise a glass of Pimm’s to him, as when it comes to losing, he’s absolutely world class.
Dee recently equalled the world record for the longest run of consecutive defeats, after his first three years on the international professional circuit saw him lose 54 matches in a row, and all of them in straight sets. That’s 108 lost sets in succession.
But he even failed in his efforts to make the record his own, after he last week won a first-round match in qualifying at a lowly Futures tournament in Spain. He soon returned to form, losing in the next round … and in straight sets.
Dee sounded baffled yesterday as he reacted to claims that he might just be the world’s worst professional tennis player. “I honestly didn’t know about the record so all the attention is a bit odd,” he said.
“Obviously it was great to get my first win but I can’t believe that people don’t have anything better to write about. I’m just going to keep on playing and improving and working hard with my coaches. Hopefully that will mean more wins at these sorts of tournaments,”

His father, Alan, said that describing him as a total no-hoper “was laughable and incorrect”, adding: “The Lawn Tennis Association have given him a rating of 4.2 and that is very impressive.”
Paul Henderson, his former head teacher at Eltham College, said: “Rob was never the school champion but he was very methodical about his tennis. We often wondered if we would hear of him again.”

Dee’s tennis adventures have been all around the planet, with defeats in Iran, Senegal, Colombia, Botswana, Venezuela, Rwanda, Kenya, Sudan, Mexico, the United States, Norway, Holland and Spain. Almost all of his tennis has been played at Futures tournaments, which are the lowest rung of the proper professional circuit and a long way from the glamour and the money of appearing at the Monte Carlo Country Club, where Andy Murray is this week. Dee’s travel expenses must run to hundreds of thousands of pounds. And yet he has won a fraction of that back in prize-money.

Why didn’t he just give up, you might ask. But you also have to admire Dee’s perseverance as his losing record went on and on and expensively on. A spokeswoman for the LTA confirmed yesterday that Dee had not received any official funding, and instead received money from his parents, with his father a managing director of a shipping firm.

Dee’s lack of success means that he doesn’t have a proper world ranking, and until this week the LTA knew next to nothing about him. Even the Kent county office were largely in the dark, regarding Dee as something of a jet-setting man of mystery, whose long-awaited win came in Spain last week when he beat American Arzhang Derakhshani 6-4, 6-3. But he was brought down to earth when he immediately lost 6-3, 6-1 to Poland’s Artur Romanowski.
Dee is now living and training in La Manga, Spain, and in recent months has been playing tournaments on Spain’s national tour. Apparently, he’s even threatening to break into the top 500 of players based there. Roger Federer, beware.

dal telegraph del 23 aprile 2008