Rafael Nadal exits Wimbledon 2015, loses to Dustin Brown in second round

Rafael Nadal shakes hand with Dustin Brown after his loss on Thursday

Wimbledon 2015 had its first major casualty in men’s singles on Thursday as World No. 10 and two-time champion Rafael Nadal crashed out in the second round, losing 5-7 6-3 4-6 4-6 to World No. 102 Dustin Brown of Germany.

The first set saw the Spaniard take an early 3-1 lead but Brown kept pegging Nadal back at every step. The German broke Nadal’s serve to even the set at 4-4, and then started to pile on the pressure on the Spaniard. He eventually sealed the opening set 7-5 by breaking Nadal with a vicious return that the Spaniard couldn’t lay his racquet on.

Nadal, however, wasn't willing to fade away quietly. He came roaring back into the fixture, despite Brown pounding in some unbelievable serves, to seal the second set in his favour 6-3 and bring the match back on equal terms.

The third set saw the German take an early lead as Nadal again started finding it incredibly difficult to counter Brown’s fast serve. Despite trying his best to remain in the match, by virtue of winning games on his own serve, Nadal’s inability to break Brown put a lot of pressure on him.

Though the No. 10 seed tried to bring the match back to level terms in the fourth set, the task proved to be too much for him in the end. The 30-year-old German fired missile after missile on his serve and backed that up with some fine play near the net. He ultimately won the fourth set 6-4 to knock the 14-time Grand Slam champion out of the competition.

This is now Nadal’s fourth loss to a player ranked outside the top 100 at Wimbledon in the last four years.

Final Scoreline – Dustin Brown (GER) beat Rafael Nadal (ESP) 7-5 3-6 6-4 6-4