It was three hours after the biggest upset of The Championships Thursday night and #DustinBrown was still the number one trending topic worldwide on Twitter. His 7-5, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory over Rafael Nadal was big news.

International media requests amounted to 50 – all the major TV and radio networks. Dustin Brown’s phone was buzzing, and it wasn’t only because of the 35,000 fans he had added to his Twitter profile, @DreddyTennis.

Craig O’Shannessy, who regularly writes a Brain Game column for ATPWorldTour.com, has been breaking down the numbers for Brown this week. He admitted, “His phone was exploding. He could not keep up with his timeline and lots of celebrities were tweeting him. It was ringing non-stop. He likes to respond, but he could not read every one.”

Having arrived in London 12 days ago without a coach – let alone an entourage – in order to qualify for Wimbledon, Brown headed out with eight friends to Thai Thoe in Wimbledon Village. “It was late, but it was a day that was very important to recognise,” said O’Shannessy, who first got to know Brown’s coach, Scott Wittenberg at an All-California Tennis Camp in Germany.

Brown left around midnight. The World No. 102 had executed his game plan to beat Nadal, the 2008 and 2010 champion, on Centre Court at Wimbledon.

“Winning a tennis match involves swinging a couple of points your way,” says O’Shannessy. “If you’re not seeing it for the first time, if you have planned for it, then those couple of points give you a huge advantage and create the result out there.

“Rafa doesn’t go to Plan B, mainly because he doesn’t have to.  I like to tell people that Dustin’s game is ‘organised chaos.’ We knew what he was going to do, we knew Nadal wasn’t going to come up with some great response to this, as he traditionally doesn’t. He serve-volleyed one point all match and won it. But he didn’t do it again. He didn’t show an urgency to come to the net, to take the court away from Dustin.

“He forgot one part of the game plan, which was to stand wider in the Ad court to take away Nadal’s favourite slider serve. I wanted one foot in the alley, maybe even two. He only started to do it in the third set, as Nadal started to target it more. Dustin remembered and then he steps forward and crushes the backhands. The reality is he forgot it! Thankfully he remembered it in time!”

Brown will next play No. 22 seed Viktor Troicki on Saturday for a place in the fourth round.