By Giovanni Pelazzo
Dustin Brown has been one of the most imaginative, unpredictable and fun to watch players of the last two decades. It’s impossible not to love Dustin Brown, No. 64 in the ranking at the end of 2016 and an excellent doubles player as well, with a career highest at No. 43. He’s vividly remembered by most tennis fans for his two memorable wins over Rafael Nadal on grass in Halle and above all at Wimbledon.
Today Dustin is living near Dusseldorf, in Germany, where he was born and grew up, but he spent a part of his life in Jamaica, his father’s native country, which he represented in the early stages of his career. Issues with the Jamaican Federation drove him to play for Germany, but after his father’s death he decided to go back to playing for Jamaica.
The last years of Dustin Brown’s tennis career have been hindered by injuries. A ruptured disc in July 2023 caused him to miss all the season and make a comeback only in 2024, benefiting from a protected ranking. “I couldn’t even walk my dog without feeling pain” he told us in our interview. Officially he’s hung up his boots, but he’ll still be playing here and there. “I’m actually going to practice after our interview, so I just try to get ready for the league in the summer in the First Division [in Germany]
Dustin Brown’s story is a great one: he used to travel around the tour in his campervan, so as to reduce costs, and he landed in the spotlight on the Centre Court of Wimbledon against Rafa Nadal, he also had a close bond with Italy and hasn’t cut his hair since 1996!
UBITENNIS: First of all thanks a lot for being here. You were one of my favourite players, so it’s a great honour for me to be interviewing you. You had announced that the 2024 would be your last season on tour, right?
DUSTIN BROWN: Yes.
UBITENNIS: And well, are you now enjoying your time? And what you like the most about your free time, your retirement?
Dustin Brown: I was thinking actually about playing my last tournament in Australia. That was the plan but I ended up not doing that, so the last tournament ended up being Metz last year. I had already realized that in December when I started seeing everyone getting ready pack their bags, getting ready to travel. I’m still good friends with a lot of the guys, like Andrea Vavassori. He plays in my club in Germany. And you see those guys online, you see their stories and after twenty-two years I was pretty happy I didn’t have to pack my bags right after Christmas to leave for Australia.
I’m a lot older than most guys, so I’m also happy now after twenty-two years on the tour to be at home and to spend my time with friends and family and to be able to plan like, someone says ‘In two weeks on Friday evening we want to go to a dinner, do you wanna come?’ and now I can say “Yeah. At that time my comment used to be ‘I’m playing a tournament, I don’t know how I’m gonna play I don’t know when I gonna come home, I have to let you know one hour before, a day before.’ So those things are obviously nice.
I’m still playing. I’m looking forward to it. I’m actually going to practice after our interview, so I just try to get ready for the league in the summer in the First Division doubles for our team in Koln. I’ve been there for over ten years now and it’s still great to be around the guys and to help them on and off the court a little bit. Also for my body is just a lot better not have to play week in and week out.
UBITENNIS: I can imagine. Actually I was going to ask you if you’re still playing some tennis and if you if you miss tennis, but you have already answered both.
DUSTIN BROWN: Yeah, I love tennis so I’m still playing for the last couple of months. One, two, two, three months at most.
I didn’t really touch the racket for some time and is just nice to now. You know all the issues that I had with my back and my body. I just have everything like calm down and I’m going to start slowly now to practice again to get ready for the League, as I said. And, yeah, I’ll practice today, and I’ll be playing a paddle tournament in the weekend.
UBITENNIS: Are you still watching tennis? Or did you use to watch it?
DUSTIN BROWN: No, I’ve never really watched a lot of. tennis. So what I do now is, I have my routine, I have my friends in there and my app for following their results, like Vavassori who’s been doing great things in the last weeks and is a very close friend of mine. Sometimes when there is a big match I’ll tune in, but I don’t necessarily watch too much tennis and I would not sit down to watch a Grand Slam quarter final just because someone’s playing. As a matter of fact not many sports at all. If I watch stuff, it’s maybe series. That’s from travelling, you know, I got addicted to series, stories, so I’m looking for different series. I watch a lot of animae and that type of stuff.
UBITENNIS: And in the past who was your favourite player and is there any player that made you fall in love with tennis?
DUSTIN BROWN: When I was growing up it was maybe Yannick Noah, Marat Safin and Andre Agassi.
UBITENNIS: You have a beautiful story. I read it many times, but it’s not like having the chance to talk directly with you. I’d love to hear something, something more about you, how everything started.
DUSTIN BROWN: I was born in Germany. I was playing a lot of sports when I was young, soccer, swimming, judo, tennis. Actually where we lived, there was a tennis court next door and the coach there was a friend of the family from Jamaica and Jamaican tennis coach, and that’s how actually I got into tennis. That’s how it started and most of my young years, I played mainly tennis, soccer and I don’t remember what age, but at one point we made the decision for tennis and I kept going down that road.
UBITENNIS: And what make you choose tennis?
DUSTIN BROWN: It was different things. Normally, being a singles sport it only depends on you and how you do. It’s not so much of the team effort or maybe there’s a coach that doesn’t like you and maybe doesn’t put you on the court to play. And yeah, I think mainly those were the things and also the injuries. I think I was pretty lucky. Nowadays in the end of my career I obviously had some injuries, but I think that during my career I was very lucky and didn’t have any surgeries and I think in general we thought that that the body in tennis would be less impacted from the outside. In soccer you can do everything right then someone slides out there and you get injured. A lot of time in other sports you have the impact from outside while in tennis it’s mainly yourself. Yes, you twist your ankle or things break down because tennis is a very tough sport but it was more a matter of not having Impact from the outside basically and hoping after my career to still have a healthy body.
UBITENNIS: Are you still struggling with your body physically?
DUSTIN BROWN: It’s never going to go away once you have major back issues. You know it’s something that you are going to have to deal with the rest of your life. It’s never going to be one hundred per cent. It was July 2023 when I hurt myself when I actually ruptured the disk and then for a while it didn’t look so great. That’s why I also stopped playing in 2023 and just came back in 2024. Part of my leg was numb, my toes, and even now I still can’t feel part of my foot. Not being a hundred percent I’m very happy that I actually got to play and that my body allows me to play because for a little bit of time it don’t really look like I was strong enough to walk the dog.
UBITENNIS: You moved to Jamaica when you were twelve years old, right?
DUSTIN BROWN: August 96
UBITENNIS: And you came back to Germany when you were twenty.
DUSTIN BROWN: Roughly. I played Futures in Jamaica from 2000 to 2004. And then in 2004 we got the campervan, and I started travelling in Europe and actually I was in Italy for really a long time like three months playing all those Futures: Padova, Vicenza, Cesena, Catania. I played everywhere. I know a lot of the Italian guys, they were older than me, Marco Petrini, Giuseppe Menga, Fabio Colangelo [current coach of Lorenzo Sonego], all these guys I was playing Futures with.
UBITENNIS: How difficult were those times, travelling with the campervan. When did you realize that you could really make it to the top?
DUSTIN BROWN: The belief was always there also from very young age. But believing is not actually doing it. There are a lot of things that have to come together, the right draws, winning some close matches here and there. And the time was obviously very difficult. But it was the only way for me financially to be able to play on the tour because otherwise the expenses would have been too high to play week in week out. My breakout year was probably 2009 when I started from qualis in the Karlsruhe Challenger and made the singles final. Then I went to Uzbekistan and that’s when I stopped traveling with the camper just because of the locations and not being able to go with the car anymore. I was in the main draw in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. I remember that in that trip I made more points in those three weeks than I had in the entire year before. So that obviously made me think. I won the first tournament; I played quarterfinals in the second and the final in the third. So that actually got me high enough to get into some Challengers in Europe and that’s pretty much all your how it started.
UBITENNIS: And if I’m not mistaken you represented Jamaica in the first part of your career, I think till 2010, then you represented Germany 2010 to 2022 and then the last few years you went back to Jamaica. Is there a particular reason for these changes?
DUSTIN BROWN: Mainly playing for Germany from 2010 was just because of the issues I had with the Federation of Jamaica. There was no support. Actually there was also no support from Germany but there were just too many issues in Jamaica. I don’t really want get into it again, but just too many issues and a dark point. We decided, OK, you have another passport, you play for Germany. I stopped playing at that time. The rule was if you don’t play for 36 months for one country, afterwards you would be able to play for another country on team events. So that’s why I played Davis Cup in the early years for Jamaica, then in 2016 and 2017 I began playing Davis Cup for Germany. Germany had a lot of very good players. Jamaica doesn’t. And also for me. I know that my dad was very sad when I switched to play for Germany and sadly my dad passed away in 2022 so my decision was that when I came back I always wanted to finish my carrier playing for Jamaica. Actually I came back from Jamaica from the funeral and called the ATP and ITF and asked to change back to Jamaica, because I also didn’t know how much longer I was going to play. I was lucky I got two and a half more years, but I was also injured for a lot of those two and a half years. Just wanted to make sure that however I get to end, I get to end while playing for Jamaica.
UBITENNIS: Were you always so spectacular on court, or did it come more over the years?
DUSTIN BROWN: I think I’ve always been like this because I was told to play aggressive and to go to the net. Generally it is seen as very spectacular because guys don’t play like this anymore. I think that if everybody was playing serve and volley and going to the net playing chip and charge it wouldn’t have looked so spectacular. For me I’m not really trying to do anything special. As you can imagine the way I was playing I wasn’t winnng a lot of junior matches because the guys are just putting the ball in the court. I was doing Juniors and mini tennis and just trying to get to the net to volley. They just put in the ball more than me, and that’s why I was losing matches. At the end I think I always played like that and over the years you learn to live with the strengths and also with the weaknesses of your game and you try to implement it better and better. At the end of the day this is why I beat some of the greatest guys on the court just because I played different and was able to take them out of their comfort zone, not because I’m playing guys who are just rallying from the back and out-playing them.
UBITENNIS: Everyone talks about those two amazing victories over Rafa Nadal, Halle 2014 and Wimbledon 2015. Are these matches the best memories of your career, or do you have any other matches that you remember with even greater pleasure?
DUSTIN BROWN: Well, I have a few very fond memories of matches, winning and also losing where I think I played very well. Obviously the Nadal match at Wimbledon was one on the bigger stages so this propelled people to know me more. I have one match a lot of people don’t know about. I think I played there for roughly 45 minutes. This was in the semifinal of Montpellier, I think in 2016 against Richard Gasquet. I was up 61 30 and I ended up losing the match. I think he was top ten at the time. I think that was one of the matches. I saw some highlights on YouTube and I think in that moment I was playing unbelievable. I think I was down one love thirty all and then in like 25, 35 minutes it was 61 30 for me. And suddenly I didn’t end up winning that match because that would have been a very good chance to get into the final and also to play for a title.
UBITENNIS: And do you still remember clearly those matches?
DUSTIN BROWN: Well, it gets brought up often enough. You don’t really forget but sometimes I don’t really know if it’s clearly that I remember or if it it’s more from seeing the videos of highlights or looking at matches. It’s also ten years ago so it starts getting very blurry. Now when I’m looking at the video for example, I know exactly at certain points what point is going to happen but it’s probably more from actually seeing the videos than actually remembering what I did, while I was on the Court.
UBITENNIS: And the sensations, the happiness, the relief, maybe of the victory. Where they different from other matches? Beating Rafa and doing it twice is maybe different, isn’t it?
DUSTIN BROWN: It was already an unbelievable feeling beating him in Halle. At Wimbledon I was even happier. Obviously in Wimbledon and my first time on Central Court. While I was growing up Wimbledon was my favourite tournament; it was always the court I wanted to play on. And play there the first time against Rafa and then to win the match was unbelievable. I think also winning the second time felt better for me because I think that the Center Court is slower than the center court in Halle, it’s over best of five sets. He won Stuttgart the week before and won the first round at Wimbledon, so you have six matches. And in Halle he was always a little tired, he lost to other guys as well. It’s after winning the French Open, and you don’t have much preparation. I think when I won in 2014 he had some issue with his knee so that’s always great I won the match but it also felt a little like he wasn’t maybe a hundred percent when we played. But at Wimbledon, where he had won the tournament and had enough matches on grass in a preparation, for me personally and also where happened was a lot more important.
UBITENNIS: Is it true that you haven’t cut your hair since 1996?
DUSTIN BROWN: Yes, that’s the last time when I really cut it short. Now when I was playing, I was still cutting the ends a little because sometimes when I was serving the hair was flying in my face and stuff like that but it’s true that the last time I completely cut it was 1996.
UBITENNIS: I don’t know if it’s true but many times I heard that you were just playing tennis for fans and to give them the all the joy of watching tennis. Is it true or not?
DUSTIN BROWN: No. I know that’s what people think when they are watching Bublik, Kyrgios, Monfils. But everyone’s trying to win the match. Yes, some shots at forty love you might play a ball and you might not care as much but at the end of the day you’re trying to win a match.
And I played to win, the way how I thought I would win the match. If you put a baseline player against someone who plays serve and volley, they are going to have different ideas. So even now when I’m playing with certain guys and we’re playing even in the League when we’re practising, for example I think I would see the ball a lot more like Vavassori than maybe someone like Sinner because it’s a different game like he sees the ball and he tries to do what he thinks is best he can do. If I were to see the same ball, I would see different things because I want to play my strengths so I think that’s always an issue where it can be very entertaining. It may look more entertaining but I’m not necessarily trying to do, but I’m just trying to win the match.
UBITENNIS: And now? What’s next?
DUSTIN BROWN: For now, just to get ready for the League. I’m looking forward to the summer to playing again, to seeing all the guys together again. It’s always a great time in the summer. You get to know all those guys who are coming from tournaments and I always enjoy the League myself, just, you know, to have a good atmosphere and to come down a little bit from the daily travelling and all of that and. For now that’s the goal. I have a few exhibitions, a few other appointments but for now I just enjoy the time at home and play a little less tennis.
UBITENNIS: Would you like to continue in some way in the tennis world? Maybe as a coach?
DUSTIN BROWN: I think I would like to stay in tennis. I don’t really see myself coaching on the tour because I don’t want to travel anymore. For 22 years I travelled from 30 to 40 weeks each year. I don’t know what’s going to happen in two or three years. Who knows. But I’m really tired of travelling and happy to be at home sleeping in my bed. I’m working with a few players here, with management. In my life, we were doing the management side of my career ourselves. So I’m trying to do that a little bit and try to help the players, not only management, but also in a mentoring or consulting way. Just from playing on the tour for over twenty years I made a lot of mistakes and I’m seeing if I can help some players make less mistakes or maybe give them the view from my side. I’ve seen a lot of things, obviously not everything but I’ve seen a lot of things that give you maybe another view. Each person needs to figure out what’s best for their career but I think sometimes I would have appreciated having someone that I could believe in to contact and to avoid certain issues. Maybe something happens that you’ve never experienced. You can speak to someone about it. So I’m trying to do that a little bit and just trying to figure out how to put everything together but that’s more of an interest than a fun thing of mine. I’m trying to work with players and help them a little bit.
