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
The level on which Japan seems to have picked up on my music seems to be on a more abstract level.
I do feel confident in my game. It's just a matter of putting a few wins together and maybe getting lucky here or there on a few tough points.
He adjusted. He put me on the defensive. Even though I like to run and I feel I'm pretty good on the run, he started to make me run to the point where it was uncomfortable.
I hope that's kind of the reason they put me on this team, was that I hope the rest of the teammates have the confidence in me to deal with the pressure of playing a fifth match. I'm feeling pretty good about the way I'm playing. Hopefully, I'll do the same on Sunday.
I love it. I love an atmosphere where people are a little bit biased.
I never feel great after a loss, but I guess it's about as good as I can feel. I fought my heart out. I did everything I could, ... He just played too good for me at the end.
I never faced Pete (Sampras) in a match. I think from watching, his is the best serve ever. And he is the only guy that I would probably not take the bet that he would so often offer in practice -- he's down love-40, says '10 bucks, I still hold serve.' I probably wouldn't even take that against him. So many times he would come back and win. He would just put it on the dime. I also wouldn't take the bets when we were just practicing our serves, he put just a tennis ball can on the other side, and says, 'A hundred bucks for who hits more.' That's not a safe bet with him.
I'm more concerned about my level of play than my ranking, ... But it is good to see my ranking have two numbers in front of it instead of three.
I'm from New York and I'm still the underdog. He's the favorite everywhere he goes. If I was in the stands I'd be cheering for him, too,
I'm just excited to be on the court. It was a rough patch for me for a while. I would have given anything last year just to be playing. It's not easy to take that long of a time off with so many things on your mind. So I'm happy to be playing. I know I'm going to get better.
He's sensational. He's an unbelievable player, but I'm going to do my best.