James Blake
James Blake
James Riley Blakeis an American retired professional tennis player. Blake is known for his speed and powerful, flat forehand. During his career, Blake had amassed 24 singles finals appearances, while his career-high singles ranking was World No. 4. His career highlights included reaching the final of the 2006 Tennis Masters Cup, the semifinals of the Beijing Olympics and the quarterfinals of the Australian Openand US Open, as well as being the former American No. 1. His two titles for the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTennis Player
Date of Birth28 December 1979
CountryUnited States of America
Most of my maturity and my different perspective comes from the last year, The J-Block.
Miami is great. I'm trying to do my best to avoid distractions and get ready for tomorrow.
Those are a lot of my friends, a lot of people that have some sort of connection to me,
Tommy's a great player who hits the ball so clean, ... We're both big servers. I look forward to playing him. No matter what his ranking is, he's one of the top players in the world.
Tommy just steamrolled me (in 19 minutes) in that first set, ... He returns your serve so well, it seems like you have to win every point three times.
We're doing this for a living, trying to win. That's my goal. It's not to embarrass anyone; it's to go out and win.
To be able to win in front of my friends and family is one of my greatest memories to date. It was a big turning point for me and propelled me to my great finish at the U.S Open and then throughout the rest of 2005.
It was very important to me because half the tour is in Europe, ... I'm excited and it gives me confidence to know that I can win here. This is the first time I've had success in the European season. Other times I've kind of made my rankings just on the U.S. season and maybe down in Australia a little bit.
It was tough to watch. I kept thinking, 'I wonder how I'd be doing if I was there.' Now this year to go out there, it's just a great feeling.
It was tough conditions, I wanted to get ahead early but I couldn't quite do that. But I came through at the end of each set.
Him and Roger (Federer) have just really dominated this year, ... And so I went in with nothing to lose...It helped me knowing that I had played really close with Roger, played really close with (Andy) Roddick.
He's sensational. I was impressed by him at the French Open but maybe it'll be a little different here in New York.
He's sensational. He's an unbelievable player, but I'm going to do my best.
He's top 20 in the world for a reason,