Nadal was two courts away and must have thought: 'Look at these two clowns, what are they doing?'", Brown's anecdote before facing Nadal in Halle
Dustin Brown, now retired from the ATP Tour, was a guest on The Changeover Podcast. During this exchange, his two victories against Rafael Nadal in Halle in 2014 and Wimbledon in 2015 were discussed.
The Jamaican took the opportunity to share an anecdote before his match against Rafa in Halle and explain how he prepared.
"I don't remember the days leading up to the match. I remember the day before I beat Andrey Kuznetsov.
I remember my coach telling me: 'call your friend Malta'. Malta is left-handed and he came directly the next day.
Malta was supposed to come and I returned 500 serves a day. You had to return left-handed serves. So I called Malta telling him I was playing Rafa in a day or two and asked if he could come.
I remember we were in Halle, on a practice court, he was serving me his left-handed serves and I was just returning.
At one point, Rafa arrived, I think it was the practice the day of the match. I was playing with Malta, we ended up playing from the back of the court, short points, and Rafa was a few courts away from us, warming up.
We were playing and Malta hit a forehand banana shot to me and in practice when someone does that I always say: 'Ah, Rafa!'.
Rafa, who was two courts away from us, probably looked over and thought: 'Look at those two clowns over there, what are they doing?'
My game plan is what my coach said: no need to rally from the back of the court with him, so every time I served hard, I was at about 60 or 65% on first serves and 90% of points won behind it, I had to make two first serves at 30-0 and 40-15.
There was no point in hitting a second serve because I had less than a 50% chance of winning the point. That's what I did, without giving him a rhythm and without letting him play neutral balls.
