5 Things you didn’t Know about Dustin Brown

Dustin Brown recorded a famous win over Rafael Nadal on Thursday at Wimbledon, beating the two-time former champion in the second round on Centre Court – a dream come true for any tennis player.

The loss to the 102nd ranked Brown was Nadal?s fourth-straight Wimbledon defeat to a player ranked in the triple digits. The previous three years saw losses to the world Nos. 100 (Lukas Rosol), 135 (Steve Darcis) and 144 (Nick Kyrgios). Since he started winning majors, Nadal only has 11 losses to such players, with four coming in the last four years at the year?s grass-court major. And before this unimaginable run, Rafael Nadal had played in five straight Wimbledon Finals!

Here are 5 facts that you ought to know about the 30-year-old German.

#5 Brown had already beaten Rafael Nadal once before

Dustin Brown said the experience of walking out on Centre Court to face the two-time Wimbledon champion was pleasant because he already had similar experience last year. At the 2014 Gerry Weber Open, Dustin Brown blew Nadal off the court, winning 6?4, 6?1. He’s now 2-0 against Nadal in his career!

“Obviously he’s one of the best players of the sport, and for me, being able to play against him twice, obviously on my favourite surface, is probably my luck,” Brown said. “I wouldn’t want to play him on clay or hard court because obviously it would make playing my type of tennis even more difficult.”

#4 He is half-German, half-Jamaican

Born in Germany to a Jamaican father and German mother, Brown’s family moved to Jamaica when he was 11 years-old and he returned to Germany in 2004. He has dual-citizenship and has originally played for Jamaica, the lack of funding and support from the Jamaican tennis federation forced him to switch his nationality to German. He even tried to obtain a British Citizenship as his grandmother is British, in order to gain funding and obviously to represent Britain. But he was not successful in obtaining the British Citizenship.

#3 He used to travel around European tournaments in a Camper Van bought for him by his parents.

With shortage of money,?his parents took a loan to buy him a Volkswagen camper van in 2004. Brown used the van to drive from tournament to tournament, living in it to save on transportation and hotels. It allowed him to compete on the lower levels on a regular basis, with his expenses being only on fuel and food. He also made some money on the side by stringing rackets for other competitors as he had a stringing machine in the van. And occasionally he went onto renting out the other beds in the van.

He was finally able to support his tennis career without the van in 2009.

“Obviously all of that has made me into the person I am, tennis-wise and also as a person and as a character,” Brown said after his big Wimbledon win. “I guess all that led to this day today, which is obviously a great day, probably the best day of my life so far.”

#2 Nicknamed “Dreddy”, because of his dread locked hair.

He is nicknamed ‘Dreddy’ because of his dreadlocked hair and that hair has not been cut for 19 years!

His twitter handle @Dreddytennis had large amount of followers during his match against Rafael Nadal. As the match progressed, the Tennis fans instantly started to recognise his entertaining game play.

#1?He is already a famed trick-shot master

Dustin Brown always had it in him – as a crowd-pleasing shot-maker. But he rarely had the big opportunities to showcase such talents that lay within him. Look out Gael Monfils!

And definitely a stunt-man.