Credit : Tennis Majors
He had trouble finding courts in good condition, decent balls and opponents to train with. Jamaica is a country of sprinters, not tennis players.
Back home after spending a few years in Germany, Dustin Brown is soon faced with the harsh reality - leaving his island is necessary for his future as a tennis player.
Forget air travel, luxury hotels and expensive meals, Brown will be travelling from tournament to tournament using a van, maximizing his meals with available ingredients and even stringing his future opponents' rackets to earn a little money.
Spotlight on the story of a player who overturned all the codes of a traditional career to become the greatest artist the ATP circuit has ever known.
Credit : TennisTv
« What a marketing dream that guy would be »
A long black cap, dives in every corner, returns faster than first serve balls, Dustin Brown is definitely not a classic tennis player.
In an era where games appear to be very similar, the Jamaican brought his own touch of madness and thrilled crowds all over the world with his talent.
He certainly didn't have the consistency needed to win a grand slam, enter the inner circle of the world's best players and become one of the key players of his time, but was he actually interested in that?
Brown wasn’t a workhorse, but instead an artist who expressed himself with his own style, often transforming tennis matches into works of art.
Improvisation, creativity and the pleasure of playing were perhaps the guiding principles that enabled the Jamaican to become the greatest showman of his time.
Credit : Ouest-France
«I need to go out there and play my game, that’s when I’m the most dangerous »
For a long time stuck on the secondary circuit, Brown could have probably opted for a more conventional form of tennis but "Dreddy" is convinced – he will only become a great player if he plays as freely as his imagination dictates.
While his atypical profile fascinates the most assiduous tennis fans, the general public is still unaware of the existence of such a player on the circuit, at least until that famous 2nd round of Wimbledon 2015.
Perhaps fate intended that, on July 2, 2015, at the classiest tournament of the year, Brown faced Nadal, a hard-working, technically impeccable player - in other words, the opposite of a Jamaican with long dreadlocks looking to shake up tennis codes.
Newspaper cover after Dustin Brown's surprising victory over Rafael Nadal.
Unexpected winner and new star of the tournament, Dreddy has just proved to the tennis world that using "freestyle" tennis, far from the patterns of play taught in traditional academies, it was possible to break into the professional world.
In 2024, Dustin Brown will retire after a long career of 22 years, yet his influence on the world of tennis and his story will undoubtedly last into the future.
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