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
I've come over a few times and not had much success, which is frustrating. I like playing indoors. I feel really good here even though it's not the same kind of crowds as I have on my side in the United States.
I've been playing pretty solid all week. I was happy to get through the way I did. I'm just happy to get back to the final, and there's no pressure on me tomorrow against Andy. He's one of the top players in the world, and I'm just going to go out and play and have fun.
I've never seen that called in my career.
I've never played well in Europe before but it's been great so far,
I've never played well in Europe before and it feels like I'm home again. I love it here. It's been great so far.
They're going to have fun whether I win or lose, ... and that takes a lot of pressure off me.
It's something I've been working on for a long time, it just wasn't working tonight. But it's not something I'm going to get too worried about. I'll just go out and work on it at practice tomorrow.
Everyone keeps asking that. But he has no reason to retire. He's one of the best in the world, still chasing Grand Slams. If he's still enjoying it and still finding ways to motivate himself, I say let him play forever.
Everyone seems to have a connection to me, and that?s such a great feeling. That?s what comes with growing up close to here and going to high school around here and trying to be as friendly as you can to those people around you. It makes for great fans ... even if they do happen to cheer a few times when he double faults. You just kind of grin and bear it.
It was just a matter of showing everyone else I'm playing well. Everyone is saying that this is my welcome back, but I feel like I've been back for a while. And this is just the fruition of it all.
It was a fun crowd. I was down there in the first two rounds in the first few rounds he was kind of on the back court and hearing the crowd go crazy. It seemed like they were almost a soccer crowd because I don't think they were all real tennis fans at the beginning of these few weeks, but by now I'm sure they are. It really does help and make a big difference when you know you have people cheering for you.
It's just amazing, ... I really couldn't have dreamed it to be any better at the beginning of the week.
It's a tricky proposition to play against him. You have to get your emotions in check. You have to take care of each one of those points instead of getting down on myself.
It wasn't the cleanest of matches to be perfectly honest, but luckily five minutes after it's over it doesn't matter if it was the best performance you ever put on or you just scraped by. A win's a win. I'm allowed to play in the third round.