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U.S. OPEN

September 1, 2010

Dustin Brown

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

D. BROWN/R. Ramirez Hidalgo
6-4, 7-6, 7-5

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. It was extreme, testing the conditions out there, the heat.
DUSTIN BROWN: Yes, definitely, I mean, being Jamaican and being at home, since I lived there for seven, eight years, heat is normally not an issue for me.
Today was extremely hot, and I was definitely fighting with that.

Q. Obviously a very good win. Crowd was really on your side.
DUSTIN BROWN: Yes, it did help. It felt like a played a Davis Cup match at home there, because a lot of Jamaican guys and Jamaican guys I know that live in New York came out to support me. It definitely helped me in the hard times where I was really struggling -- concentrating and also struggling with my body.

Q. Will you be catching any of Andy's match if you get the chance?
DUSTIN BROWN: I'm going to try and go over there. What's the score right now?

Q. Just about to win the second set.
DUSTIN BROWN: Okay, yeah, I'm probably gonna, as soon as I get my chance, go over there and watch a little bit, definitely.

Q. You're serving really well today.
DUSTIN BROWN: It helped a lot of times when I needed it, yeah. So that's one of my biggest weapons, my serve, and it definitely was there when I needed it the most. Especially at the end when I realized that I tried to close out the points really fast, it helped me, especially a lot of first serves.

Q. And the dropshot, too, yeah?
DUSTIN BROWN: That's my favorite shot, basically. Yeah, the dropshot, it helps also.

Q. Were you using that particularly because of the player you were facing?
DUSTIN BROWN: The serve or the dropshot?

Q. The dropshot.
DUSTIN BROWN: No, that's probably anybody. I mean, I try it and I see how it works. If the guy is running it down every time and hits a winner, then I should stop. But today it worked pretty well, so I kept using it.

Q. If you do play Murray, what sort of match would you expect?
DUSTIN BROWN: A tough one, probably. (Smiling.) There we go.
I'm gonna definitely play my type of tennis, you know, play aggressive, try to keep the points short. I've seen that he's a very good returner, so I'll have to see how it works out, how I'm serving, if it's possible to play serve and volley or have to play from the baseline.

Q. Did you make any progress with your inquiries about playing Davis Cup for Great Britain?
DUSTIN BROWN: Actually, no. Since Wimbledon I haven't had any contact with them, and that was the last time I spoke with them. They said they were going to get in contact with me, so we'll see.

Q. There was a suggestion that you had to get a British passport or something.
DUSTIN BROWN: Well, yeah, of course if you're playing for the country you have to get the passport. The possibility was to get the passport, but then as I said back then to the LTA, they have to come towards me and tell me, you know, how we can help each other.
It's not just the sense of running around and getting a British passport. I feel very Jamaican as it is. I mean, the crowd was out there to support me.
But there was, in the late couple years I've had a lot of problems with the Jamaican Federation. As I've heard, now there has been a new president elected in Jamaica for the tennis federation, and I'm waiting to see -- for they will them to contact me and see where we can go from here.

Q. Are they giving you any more financial backing since Wimbledon?
DUSTIN BROWN: The Jamaican Federation? No, nothing has happened at all. Nothing has changed. Just in the last week or two as I've been hearing from friends in Jamaica and family in Jamaica that they've elected a new president in Jamaica and that changes have been made in the federation.
So I'm waiting to hear from them and to see how we can try and figure out the last couple years that were bad. Because the main goal, which I've been saying all the time, is that I can't be working with those people as the president or the national coach because they weren't doing their job.
So now changes have been made, and definitely looking forward to hearing what they have to say.

Q. What's the biggest crowd you've played in front of, and how will you cope with that when you possibly play Andy?
DUSTIN BROWN: If I play against Andy, then I guess it's going to be on a big court, and that will probably be the biggest crowd I've played in front of.
Besides that, I played Newport against Sam Querrey on center court. There were a lot of people there, but, you know, it's hard to see how many people are there when you're playing. I mean, it's packed.

Q. All things being equal and financial support and everything, would you rather play for Jamaica?
DUSTIN BROWN: Definitely, because I'm Jamaican; my dad is Jamaican. If the possibility is to stay in playing for Jamaica, I definitely would love to do that.
But if I realize that nothing is going to change over the years, I mean, I have to look at my career. Then if things work out with Britain or with Germany, either way, it's a mutual thing. Federation is not doing it because I'm Dustin Brown and I'm a nice guy.
They going to do it because I'm going to help them in some sort of way, and vice versa.

Q. Do you know Andy at all?
DUSTIN BROWN: Well, from TV, yeah. (Laughter.)

Q. Any relationships at all?
DUSTIN BROWN: Nope.

Q. What do you make of him as a player? Is he one of the guys you fear playing, or actually enjoy playing against someone like that?
DUSTIN BROWN: To be honest, first or second Grand Slam main draw, I got Melzer first round in Wimbledon and won a set off him and did well for what I thought.
I'm really excited if Andy should win to play against him. Then we'll see what happens.

Q. Have you always played with that kind of explosive style that you brought to the court today? Has that always been an expressive way of playing tennis?
DUSTIN BROWN: Yes, definitely has been, and definitely the crowd helped today to keep me pushing, especially in times of when I felt a little bit down. But it was definitely always the way I played.

Q. It doesn't seem like as though you could possibly play a boring point. Every point you play has something...
DUSTIN BROWN: Thank you. I don't really do it to make anybody else happy. It's just the way I play. So if other people are happy watching, then even better.

Q. Do you think the crowd, if against Murray, would be on your side again?
DUSTIN BROWN: I know the Jamaican guys are coming. They will be on my side. I don't know about anybody else. (Laughter.)

Q. Are there a lot of Jamaican guys coming?
DUSTIN BROWN: Yeah, and if we play on a big court, then there's definitely gonna be more guys coming. We'll see.

Q. What do you think you can achieve ultimately in your career?
DUSTIN BROWN: The last year has been a very good year for me, and ranked from maybe 400-something to inside the top 100, and that with limited support from federations, limited practice. Either way, I think there's definitely much more to come. If I get the chance, financial backing, and, you know, have a own coach traveling with me and all sorts of things.
So we'll just see what happens from now.

Q. How are you financing yourself at the moment?
DUSTIN BROWN: Um, myself.

Q. Winnings?
DUSTIN BROWN: Winnings, playing Bundesliga in Germany. That's basically it.

Q. There's talk of a camper van.
DUSTIN BROWN: It's at home. It's still my car when I go home. So when I go home, I go to the supermarket with it or go to the movies or whatever. So it's still my car, but I haven't been home that often.
And I'm not thinking of selling it either, because of so much memories and hard things I've gone through with the camper. I'm definitely keeping it.

Q. Where is home?
DUSTIN BROWN: Home right now is in Winsen Aller in Germany near to Hannover.

Q. Does it cost you money to come to these bigger tournaments, as well? Are you out of pocket?
DUSTIN BROWN: Well, if you're playing the US Open you're getting a purse of, I don't know, $18,000. I don't possibly see how much you're gonna spend to not go home with a plus.
So here it's okay. If you're playing challengers and you're maybe going to, I don't know, maybe Australia to play a challenger, or to Johannesburg and those, depending how the flight is.
And then also depends if you're traveling with a coach or not. Then if you lose first round, you could go out with a minus, yeah.

Q. What's your coaching setup at the moment?
DUSTIN BROWN: Actually, I don't have a coach. Here I took my best friend who has been a coach in Switzerland, Daniel Puttkammer, and he knows me since, I don't know, maybe 10 years.
He's probably the best guy right now that I could have taken. We've been working pretty hard on the court and been seeing the results also, especially on my return game.

Q. Is there any reason why you don't have a permanent coach?
DUSTIN BROWN: No money.

Q. No money? Yeah.
DUSTIN BROWN: Very simple.

Q. Do you envy someone like Murray when you see the money that big players like him earn?
DUSTIN BROWN: Well, it also depends. There are also a lot of people that have a lot of money, but it also depends if you're also still a free person. I'm very free. I can do what I want. If I don't feel like playing, for example next week, then I'll go home.
Being in his position and having his type of money, there definitely is a certain amount of contracts that you're tied down to, and definitely rules you have to follow.
So that's why probably right now I don't have any contracts, besides Topspin Clothing and Air Berlin because of playing Bundesliga. I've been free most of my life, and I'm definitely -- the contract I'm getting, I'm definitely looking properly to make sure I don't give away too much of my freedom and other people are deciding for me where I have to play, where I have to train. Then I just can't perform good.

Q. Do you get a sense that there's a following at home for what you're achieving? Will there be sort of a fevered anticipation in Jamaica for you?
DUSTIN BROWN: Right now, yes. Beforehand, because the federation wasn't doing their job and they weren't really properly doing their media jobs, you know, when I was playing Wimbledon, like I said, I said this 10,000 times before, I got an e-mail from the president asking -- congratulating me for the wildcard.
At that time, I was ranked 98. Obviously you don't need a wildcard to play the main draw at Wimbledon. Obviously then no one in Jamaica knew what I was doing. It was really sad that I actually have to call my dad in Jamaica and say, I'm playing Wimbledon next week and back and forth.
I don't know if it's because of the new president now, but there have been - as far as I've heard from friends and family in Jamaica - the last couple days I've been on TV and in the newspapers, and it's definitely a little bit of a change.

Q. After Newport, why did you go back to Europe and play on clay when you could have played on hard?
DUSTIN BROWN: Because the tour events in Europe -- in the States I would have been in quallies, first of all. The challengers in Europe I would have been in the main draw. And I had to play - if I would have lost - to play Bundesliga in Germany.
So it wouldn't have made sense to stay in the States, fly to Germany, stay in the States, just back and forth. So I decided to go over there.
Yeah, this year has been a terrible clay season for me, but yet I've made all my points in my life in juniors playing on clay, so it was just a, yeah, bad year on clay.

End of FastScripts

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