DUSTIN Brown, the toast of Wimbledon after beating Rafael in the second round on Thursday night, has revealed that while growing up in Germany he was the regular victim of racism.
The 30-year-old from the town of Celle also said the day after his upset win over the former champion that he is still subjected to online abuse - although, like the threats received by the British player Heather Watson, he is sure a lot of it comes from people who have bet on his matches and been disappointed by the results.
"It´s a shame," said Brown, who plays Viktor Troicki, the No 22 seed, for a place in the fourth round. "Where I grew up in the north of Germany, I experienced a lot of problems with racism.
"The village next to my town was infamous for being a Nazi stronghold. We were three or four coloured kids around, and sometimes the other ones showed up with knives after school. That´s why I had some beat-ups in primary school.
"It´s a shame when people nowadays attack me on the internet, but I guess most of the time it has got something to do with betting stuff. Over the years I have learned how to cope with it.
"It´s a poor thing from those people. Of course they are not happy. But it's the same if I chose to go to the casino tonight and I lose money, then I can't blame the guys working at the roulette tables.
"I try to be patient with those people, but from time to time I have to react and tell them what I think. I try to keep it as normal as I can. People who opprobiate [that is, subject him to abuse] me should show up right after a match - this would have a different outcome."
Right after beating Nadal, Brown declared it was the best day of his life. But now the excitement has subsided, he knows he cannot simply leave it as an isolated incident. Instead, he has to build on it and use it to convince himself he can go deeper in this competition and in subsequent majors.
"All the hard matches I lost in the last couple of years obviously led to this day and gave me the strength to pull through at 5-4 serving for the match," he said. "If I had to take all the losses of this year again to have another victory like this, I would take them again.
"Being on Centre Court for the first time and then playing like this, I have to say I surprised myself. I was surprised, too, that I could hold this strength till the end.
"I felt like being in a tunnel. 'Go on, go on, just carry on'. Good to see that I now not only can do it for the span of one set or two, but a whole match."
Given his relatively advanced age, and his modest current world ranking of 102, it remains unlikely that Brown will challenge for major titles. Indeed, with all due respect to the battling qualities he showed against the former champion, that Thursday-night result may say more about the weaknesses in Nadal's game than it does the strength in Brown's - after all, this was the third time in the last four years that the Spaniard has failed to get any further than the second round.
But be that as it may, Brown is not about to get anxious about what will happen in his career from now on, or what might have happened had he enjoyed his current form a few years back. "I guess it just takes a long time for everything to fall in place and maybe three, four, five or six years ago, I wasn't ready for it," he said.
"Who knows for whatever reason? The things that are happening now, I just try to enjoy it as much as I can and hopefully they keep coming and not worry about what could have been or what should have been."
If he beats Troicki, Brown will then face either James Ward or Vasek Pospisil, and if he wins that one, he could have a quarter-final against Andy Murray. Appealing as such a tie might be, however, he refuses to contemplate it at present.
"I have not even looked that far down the draw. I have no idea what my draw looks like. I know I am playing Viktor Troicki and I think that's the most important thing I need to concentrate on."
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