- Mike Dickson, the Daily Mail’s tennis correspondent, died at the age of 59 this year.
- He was a giant of the industry and worked at the Mail for 33 years in total.
- Dickson covered more than 30 different sports in nearly 50 countries.
It will be strange not having Mike Dickson at Wimbledon this year. He started working as a tennis correspondent for the Daily Mail long before I played professionally and I vividly remember our first meeting.
When I was a teenager I had been given an invitation to go to Queen’s and a couple of us ended up going out for a night in London. Dicko realized our misdeeds and beat us up.
It was the first time he had appeared in the press and he was furious about it. I was young and trying to make a good impression. I spent a few months mulling this over before meeting Dicko for the first time, at a competition in Bath. He was so kind and polite that it was impossible to get angry with him.
The older I got, the more I understood the importance of what he did. Everything Dicko wrote was balanced and fair. Tennis needs guys like him and he was part of the furniture. We ended up sharing a couple of dinners together and I had a great admiration for him.
His was the first face I expected to see in front of me at a press conference and, sadly, my media session at the Australian Open in January turned out to be the last one he attended before he passed away. The pained expression showed how popular he was. We will miss him but we will certainly remember him.
Mike Dickson poses with the Ron Bookman Media Excellence Award he won in 2016
Every year when I play at Wimbledon, I rent a place for a couple of weeks in the village, not far from where Dicko’s family lives. Every morning I go to the Demitasse café and I love the homeliness there. You arrive the weekend before and everything is so calm and quiet (there are flowers arranged perfectly everywhere), and then the doors open and chaos breaks out. It’s my favourite competition on the circuit.
Personally, I’m happy to have made it this far because I injured my knee a couple of weeks ago and the initial prognosis wasn’t good. I was pretty much ruled out, so I haven’t practiced much and my expectations are quite low. But it’s a good opportunity to be on court before playing doubles with Andy Murray at the Paris Olympics.
It’s unfortunate that Andy’s fitness is up in the air for Wimbledon because he is one of the icons of British sport. His work ethic and resilience have inspired people far beyond tennis. I don’t think we’ll ever see a British tennis player do what Andy did, considering all the setbacks he’s had. I hope he gets the send-off he deserves here. He’ll get a special reception anyway.
British No. 3 Dan Evans says it will be strange not to have Dickson at Wimbledon this year
There are 12 British entrants on the men’s side, which is the most we’ve had for a long time. Eight of them are wildcards and four are direct entries. It’s an indicator that British tennis is in good health, but next year we should be aiming for eight direct qualifiers.
With so many up-and-coming Brits, such as Jack Draper and Henry Searle, there is an incredible opportunity for a couple of youngsters to make a name for themselves. If a youngster ranked 240th wins a round, that means a lot of points for them.
Getting his feet wet at this level can do all sorts of things for his ambition and inspiration. He can really set some of the youngsters on the right path and I hope we see that in the next week or so.