Nadal, the 2008 and 2010 Wimbledon champion, on Thursday crashed out to a 5-7, 6-3, 4-6, 4-6 defeat to the big-hitting German-Jamaican, who was making his Center Court debut at the age of 30, reports Xinhua.
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He lost to a dreadlocks-wearing, Jamaican-German qualifier ranked No. 102 in the world named Dustin Brown.
LONDON – On the final point of the first set of his latest Wimbledon disappointment, Rafael Nadal swung his mighty, lefty forehand – and whiffed, accidentally whacking his right leg with his racket.
For the first set Nadal didn’t know what to make of Brown’s feathered half volleys and crushing serves and his tactic of playing deliberately short points, which to the delight of the beery evening crowd, trumped Nadal’s power and placement. Brown was thrilled with his victory over the Spaniard and said it was a hard win. “All the kids that play tennis dream about being able to play on that Centre Court”.
But Brown was far from disheartened, continuing to attack at every opportunity, and he gained the crucial break in the fifth game of the third set against an increasingly bamboozled and error-plagued Nadal. While as Indians, we wonder how a player can be so agile on the court with such long locks, Brown has showed exactly how to do it!
He was in a hole that was about to get deeper, when Brown broke service in the first game of the fourth set. I am lucky to have played him twice on my favourite surface. The last couple of years, I was not ready to compete well here. “My career, too”, he added.
It wasn’t so much the result that had people buzzing – it was the fourth year in a row that Nadal lost to an opponent ranked 100th or lower at Wimbledon – but the manner in which Brown dismantled the two-time champion. When the country did not give him enough support to play, he left in 2010 to represent Germany. “I went for my shots and it really went well from the beginning”.
“If you look at the style of those players, Dustin Brown, Nick Kyrgios, Lukas Rosol… very risky players, they could beat anyone on their day”.
Brown’s Twitter account before his famous win over 14-times grand slam champion Nadal had some 41,000 followers, but the number was rapidly rising.
After the 30-year-old produced an angled ace on his third match point, he emulated his feat of 2013 when he downed Lleyton Hewitt – like Nadal a former world No. 1, too.
In men ” s doubles, the Indian-Serbian pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Janko Tipsarevic was knocked out of the first round after losing in straight sets against Austrian Jurgen Melzer and Swedish Robert Lindstedt 3-6, 3-6, 2-6.
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The highlight of a one-sided match was the sensational shot executed by the Swiss from behind his own baseline, slipping the racket between his legs to direct the ball over the head of Querrey. “So, if you want to use the house, it’s going to be free tomorrow”. “I think some fresh input to freshen up the ideas might be a good idea but that’s up to him”. Trying to stop the in-form Scot in the third round is Andreas Seppi. It was 58 minutes against Kurumi Nara – 6-2 6-0 – on Thursday (Friday PHT). It was as though Brown, still playing confidently and, it must said, happily, could not quite believe it himself, even though he has beaten Nadal before on grass, in less grand circumstances.
