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
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.
I know I won't be able to enjoy my title too much,
This summer is a little better than last summer, ... I can actually sit here without feeling I am going to fall off the chair. I can actually smile, and, yeah, I definitely feel so much better and I am enjoying it a whole lot. And it does put a few things in perspective and I am just so happy to be playing and now that it is going well and I feel like I'm healthy. I feel like things are starting to go my way, it's such a good feeling.
He's a guy that I'm never going to count out, ... It's so amazing to me how many people write or ask him the question when he's going to retire. You don't see that happen too much with a guy that's top 10 in the world and has won tournaments. Why should he retire if he's enjoying it, and he's still the biggest name, the biggest draw in tennis?
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 riding a wave of confidence, and hopefully it will continue here. These guys are here to help me, and I'm here to help them, so we've got a pretty confident team overall.
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.
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 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.
Still seems like a dream come true. Never seemed possible at the beginning of this week. It couldn't have been more perfect to do it in front of my friends and family. I know there's going to be a little bit of celebrating in Fairfield.
The baseball thing is a joke. Ten games out of a 162-game season for steroids is a joke. Two years is much more of a deterrent. It makes guys realize that you can't get away with it. You can't do this until you get caught and say, 'Oh no, it's not a big deal if I'm only out for three weeks or something.' If you're out for two years, that's a sizeable percentage of your career.
The baseball thing is a joke, ... Ten games out of a 162-game season for steroids is a joke. Two years is much more of a deterrent. It makes guys realize that you can't get away with it. You can't do this until you get caught and say, 'Oh no, it's not a big deal if I'm only out for three weeks or something.' If you're out for two years, that's a sizeable percentage of your career.
The ball's moving so fast these days that sometimes it's impossible for anyone to see, even a trained official.