Wimbledon lost one of its biggest crowd pleasers on Saturday when dreadlocked German Dustin Brown, who toppled twice champion Rafael Nadal, lost to Serb Victor Troicki before a court filled with fans willing him to victory.
Shouts of "Way to go Dustin, we're here for you" and "Come on Dustin, come on" rippled from the stands. It was a rare lone voice that yelled "Go, Troicki, bravo" despite the Serb's clear dominance in a third-round match he won 6-4, 7-6(3), 4-6, 6-3.
Brown's commanding victory over Nadal on Thursday stunned Wimbledon and had some fans thinking a new era might be dawning for Brown, ranked No. 102, whose father was Jamaican and mother is German, and who uses the Twitter hashtag @DreddyTennis.
"I was a little disappointed to see him lose, despite the crowd being behind him," said Phil Lawford, a banker from Melbourne, Australia who, like Brown is aged 30.
"I think he's got a future ahead of him."
The lanky, 6-foot 5-inch German's unorthodox style includes a serve and volley approach that sees him playing close to the net and lobbing soft drop shots to his opponent. Every time he did it he sent a ripple of delight through the crowd.
But in the end Brown admitted Troicki, the 22nd seed, had simply outplayed him, despite the fans egging him on.
"He played great. With his game, the way he was serving, especially in the tiebreak, I mean, I can do what I want, this guy had four aces and one service winner in the tiebreak, I'm most likely not going to win the tiebreak," Brown said in a post-match press conference.
While Troicki was almost always in control, Brown had more of the crowd-pleasing shots, including a drop-shot return of serve that left the fans gasping.
"He hit a good kick serve. I wanted to hit a dropshot. I hit a dropshot and it came back over. Everyone smiled, which is a good thing," Brown said.
He added that it was great to play at Wimbledon, and the prize money of 77,000 pounds ($119,927.50) would be helpful, but financing his career remained an uphill battle.
"It's one great week, obviously a lot of money. But there's also so many weeks where we throw money out the window basically, just for flights and food. That's just for us alone," he said.
