Robert Dee - British Tennis Professional - Beltranena comes back to regain the record

steven · Tennis legend

RE: Robert Dee - British Tennis Professional - Beltranena comes back to regain the record

The Hoose · Satellite level

I see he's still managing to persuade people to apologise to him - this has just appeared, linked from the front page of the BBC sport site

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/8055466.stm

Simmy26 · Lower Club Player

What a fud!

steven · Tennis legend

ROFLMAO ... it seems amazing that they are doing this after more than a year, surely negotiations can't have been going on for that long.

I suppose collecting apologies like this is no more silly than us following his career on here, but I preferred Robert Dee the Brit who never gave up and eventually won a Futures qualifying match to Robert Dee the apology collector.

PaulM · Tennis legend

"We accept that these matches were professional, that they form part of Mr Dee's professional record and that the article was therefore inaccurate. We apologise to Mr Dee."

This isn't true. If the tournament is not ATP/ITF men's circuit sanctioned it is not professional, even if prize money is offered.

This apololgy is nonsense, those tournaments do not form part of Robert's "professional record", which is why they aren't on his, wait for it, professional record. The BBC should withdraw this apology immediately and Mr Dee should be ashamed of himself for letting his pride take over him and leading to what can only be described as an outright lie.

What a tool.

Drew · May 19, 2009

I wonder if its Robert's parents that are behind this more than anything else?

By definition getting paid to play sport must be looked at as a 'profession' so I think that is right

His 'other wins' will form part of his Non-ITF/ATP professional record.
His ITF record currently shows 1 win and all the losses.

All the BBC had to do was to insert a couple of extra words like...

"...he had finally won at the 55th attempt and after three years of trying on the ITF circuit"

If they had stated that then their article would have been factual. No apology would have been sought.

Robert should stick to tennis and stop the apology hunt !

alex03maccy · Grand Slam Champion

with his record, should he really stick to tennis? lol

freerider · Futures level

well done mr dee. more wins against the british media then against other tennis players, a very commendable record

Salmon · Tennis legend

Hehehehehe. Going by this logic, Murray can sue papers 100 times a week when they say a British male player hasn't won a Grand Slam tourney since 1936, given that he's a USO Boys winner.

scottie1 · Futures level

is that slightly more wins in singles than Jamie Murray lol

steven · Tennis legend

Robert Dee started August by playing Antonio Perez and Sergio Montesino, the matches finishing as a double bagel and a bagel+breadstick. Same old story, you think? Well yes, except that it was Robert who won them!

This was just a Spanish pro tour tournament called the Open de Tenis de los Alcazares, but he went on to win four rounds, eventually losing 5 & 2 to Ivan Esquerdo Andreu, who was in the ATP top 400 back in 2003.

I wonder when he'll start playing Futures qualifying regularly again.

Bruce · Lower Club Player

Robert Dee has managed the 3rd win (at ITF level) of his career.

Spain F37 qualifying

First round
#UNR Robert Dee (GBR) d. #UNR Yuri Nebolsin (RUS) 7-6(5) 7-5
Nebolsin in a 17 year old whose only win was as a junior.

Second round
#UNR Evgeni Bankov (BUL) d. #UNR Robert Dee (GBR) 6-4 6-4
Bankov is also 17 years old.

steven · Tennis legend

And we thought the saga was over ... the Gruaniad reports that Robert "appeared at the high court in London today to sue the Daily Telegraph for ruining his professional reputation.

Robert Dee, 23, from Bexley in Kent, has already secured more than 30 apologies and tens of thousands of pounds in damages from media organisations that made similarly disparaging allegations about his sporting prowess.

But the Telegraph refused to back down over two articles on the front page and in the sports section on 23 April 2008 under the headlines "World's worst tennis pro wins at last" and "A British sensation the world's worst". The newspaper is ready to call high-profile witnesses, including Boris Becker and John Lloyd, the former British No 1 who is now captain of the Great Britain Davis Cup team."

The full article can be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/feb/24/tennis-pro-sues-telegraph

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

The whole thing is just totally ridiculous and doesn't do Dee any favours and seems to have had a sense of humour failure about the thing, but in all honesty, he definately has a case and I would be surprised if he didn't win the court case given how the libel law actually works.

Not too sure what Boris Becker and John Lloyd are possibly going to be able to add to this debate and it seems to be more scare tactics to try and get Dee to drop the case.

steven · Tennis legend

ForeverDelayed wrote:
The whole thing is just totally ridiculous and doesn't do Dee any favours and seems to have had a sense of humour failure about the thing, but in all honesty, he definately has a case and I would be surprised if he didn't win the court case given how the libel law actually works.

Not too sure what Boris Becker and John Lloyd are possibly going to be able to add to this debate and it seems to be more scare tactics to try and get Dee to drop the case.

Yes, I agree with you on all three counts.

From that article, his main argument seems to be that being called "the worst player in the world" could have an adverse effect if he ever wanted to become a tennis coach, but I imagine people in the tennis world would be well aware that a lot of Futures losses doesn't make you the worst player in the world by a long way. The other reason I think taking it this far may be a bit misguided is that if he hadn't, the whole thing would have been forgotten about in a few days.

I believe there was a fun story to he had here, but a more positive one along the lines of persistence pays off (it always seemed very odd of them to talk about how bad he was when he'd actually won a match) and I don't like the way that journalists can pick on people like this and use sloppy reporting to make them look worse than they actually are. I really don't know why the Telegraph has let things go this far but it'll be interesting to see how the case develops.