'Worst player' earns maiden win

A British tennis player dubbed the worst player in the world has finally won a professional match at the 55th attempt and after three years trying.

Robert Dee, 21, recorded his landmark victory in the qualifying section of a futures event in Spain.

Dee beat Arzhang Derakhshani 6-4 6-3 in the first round of qualifying for the Reus tournament, near Barcelona.

However, his moment in the sun did not last long - he promptly lost 6-3 6-1 to Artur Romanowski in the second round.

The victory means he remains joint holder of the record for the longest losing streak in the history of the pro game with Diego Beltranena of Guatemala.

Beltranena also lost 54 professional matches in a row between 1997 and 2005, but he managed to win a set during one of his defeats.

Until he beat Derakhshani, Dee had lost 108 straight sets, attracting widespread comment from tennis fans on internet message boards.

Dee, who has a career-best world ranking of 1466, has been trying to win in tournaments at the very lowest level of the professional game since April 2005.

He has had more success at national level in Spain, where he is based and currently has a rating of 4.2 with Britain's Lawn Tennis Association - seven is the highest possible and one the lowest.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/7360153.stm

yes, something the Brits should be eternally proud of I feel :rolleyes:

If his ranking was as high(!) as 1466, it gives us hope then.. lol...

:blink: :blush: that's the lowest (highest?) ranking I've ever seen!!!! Glad to hear that he won a match.

they keep mentioning that on the radio :rolleyes: id have given up a long time ago if i was him.

do we know what nationality he is? i mean further than British?

Is the BBC trying to be funny or is quite simply a bunch of gobshites?

In 2005, his competition schedule was;

Mexico City r1
Dakar, Senegal r1
Khartoum, Sudan r1
Mombasa, Kenya r1
Kigali, Rwanda r1
Tehran, Iran r1
Gaborone, Botswana r1

He won a total of 15 games.

I'm quite surprised there are tournaments of any description in some of those African cities!

We at britishtennis.net have been following Dee's exploits for a while. He not only shares the consecutive losses record, he was also instrumental in the ATP's decision to stop awarding pojnts for R1 losses at Challenger level and above thanks to this article in the Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/ten...ticle521350.ece which as far as I know stemmed from some of us noticing that an unranked Brit had got a WC into a Challenger in Mexico and the fact that Neil Harman was a member of the board concerned.

He's not the world's worst player by a long shot - the other two players mentioned in that article were a level of magnitude weaker for a start.

The story about his win has made it around the world and back, and it even filled the last quarter of Roger Federer's press conference in Monte Carlo yesterday - proof if any was needed of the media's propensity to feed on itself! ;)

If you want to know more, the thread we started in February when he was approaching the record tells you all you might want to know and a lot you probably don't ... http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?for...1&commentPage=0

Ahh bless :D Well if I were him I'd have thrown that match to get the worst record! :lol: Fair play to him fo rkeeping going, and bizarrely winning 2-0 when he'd never won a set :wacko:

Reminds me of the British tennis circuit :rolleyes: roflmao

Seriously good to see him finally win a match, musnt have been easy( well obviously because 99% of the time he sucks roflmao ).

Dee for Wimby :B&B: roflmao

:lmaao: I'll get my bet on!

Isn't Gasquet the worst player ever? Certainly the worst result/talent ratio ever in the history of the game!