Fabulous Brown upsets Nadal

What a fantastic match from Justin Brown!

The funny German played at his very best to defeat Nadal 7-5 3-6 6-3 6-3 in 2 hours and 33 minutes.

How Brown won

Dustin interpreted the match perfectly. The German was 100% aware he couldn’t trade shots with Rafa from the baseline to constantly attack the Spaniard. Brown was very smart to take the King of Clay out from his comfort zone (the baseline) with continuous drop-shots that made Rafa look like… a normal player, not the “baseline assassin” we all know. This is a strategy that strange enough not many players adopt against the Spanish Legend.

“The point is whatever I do is to take him out of his comfort zone. If I would stay in the back and rally with him left, right, that would not be a very good match for me. I know that. Obviously I try to play my game. Even if I miss a few returns or whatever, it’s also good if he doesn’t get that many hits and obviously doesn’t get into a rhythm.”

Nadal: I didn’t hit 3 balls in the same way

The world no.10 commented “On this court especially, you meet players that don’t want to play from the baseline sometimes,” said Nadal. “This opponent is one of these ones. You cannot have mistakes against a player like him with that big serve.

You know, nothing to lose. Serving first and second almost the same speed.  Without having rhythm at all. I didn’t hit three balls in a row the same way. Then when you need to hit that ball, extra ball, you don’t have the confidence to do it. So that’s what happened.”

After this match Brown leads Rafa 2-0 in head to head matches!

Next vs. Troicki

Brown will play Troicki in the 3^rd round. This is the first time they play each other. It will be fun again.