The bad blood between Jamaica's No1 player Dustin Brown and his national association has flared up again. Brown, who could qualify for Great Britain through his grandmother and lost in the first round here on Monday, has accused Tennis Jamaica of refusing any financial support because of his "white mom".
Phillip Gore, the TJ president, hit back yesterday in the Jamaica Gleaner, saying the association could not afford to fund Brown. "When I took over five years ago I met with Brown and asked him to let bygones be bygones," said Gore. "But he refused and said he would not play for Jamaica again as long as Dougie Burke remains as national technical director. He needs to apologise. to the directors of Tennis Jamaica for his public comments against us; and secondly, accept Mr Burke as our technical director."
Will Brown be taking heed? It hardly sounds like it. On his Facebook page he responded: "These guys @ Tennis Jamaica have a skill for turning the things so they look like "The Good Guys"... In that article they forgot to mention that back then Mr Gore told me that he will not fire Mr Burke because he is family to his wife ... Is that a reason to be national coach...??? They tried to support me, did they ever offer to even pay as much as a flight...In juniors they said I have to pay for my own food @ tournaments, because I have a white mom, meaning that we have money ... These Ppl Are Sick!!!"
Draper disappears
Why is Draper not here, journalists asked? Sears replied: "Well I think what we're talking about here is performance. I'm a coach, Leon's a coach. Steve Martins is performance director and he's in charge of overall performance between the men and the women. We just came here to respond to what is obviously a disappointing set of results."
That was about it, although it was lucky that anyone was there to hear it at all. The email announcing the 11am meeting arrived at 10.37am. Perhaps a Tardis may be a useful addition to the press centre.
