James Blake

March 21, 2007

James Blake

KEY BISCAYNE, FLORIDA

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.
Q. Is there an advantage for some of you seeded in the Top 10? Federer is here and he comes off a loss like he did after that long streak. Is there any type of advantage coming to this tournament?
JAMES BLAKE: I don't know, we'll find out. We haven't had that experience for a long time, in 41 matches. We haven't seen him come off a loss, so we'll see how he reacts. He's a great player, possibly going to be the greatest ever by the time he's done.
I have a feeling if you've gotten to that point and accomplished so much, you know how to bounce back and how to come off a loss. We'll find out this week.
It maybe gave us a little bit of hope in the fact that he is human. He can lose and there's a way to beat him where he can have an off day. He hadn't had one in so long.
It gives us a little bit of hope, but it's definitely something where we still go into each match we play with him, or any time I step on the court with him I feel like I'm going to have to play my best tennis to win. Sometimes I've played matches with him where I felt like I played some of my best tennis and came up short.
He's the one guy I feel like can do that to you still. But having a loss, maybe he's faltering a little. But I have a feeling he's eager to prove otherwise.

Q. On that same topic, as the opponent, how do you keep from being in awe, I guess for lack of a better word? But how do you make yourself feel like, I can beat that guy, even though when you look at his record against the Top 10 players, it's absurd? How do you convince yourself that you could beat him?
JAMES BLAKE: Just being a competitor you go into every match feeling like, I can win, especially when I'm confident. Last year I was confident in how well I was playing, so I definitely went into the match thinking I could win.
Then once you get out there you never really want to feel in awe of someone while you're playing, so you're not thinking about that. You're thinking about everything you can do.
If you make him come up with great shots and he does, you know, it's too good. After the match you can say, That was too good and there was nothing else I could have done. But during the match you try to find a different way to win. You go to the other wing, make him beat you some other way, try anything to change it up and see if you can win.
Then after the match or when you're seeing him play someone else, sure, we're all tennis fans, too. You can be in awe of someone that's that good. But when you're on the court, you're just focusing on yourself, making sure you're doing what you do best and trying to make him beat you at your best.

Q. Do you like the purple courts?
JAMES BLAKE: (Laughing) only gotten a chance to hit on them once.

Q. Does it make any difference in your vision?
JAMES BLAKE: No, it never made a difference. They changed those US Open courts to blue, and I didn't really notice much. I did notice the blue made it better on TV, made it easier to watch. But here, I don't know how -- I haven't seen this on TV yet, so we'll see if it makes it better for that, but for the players, for me, it doesn't make much difference at all.

Q. How would you rate your own game right now? What shots are working and what are not?
JAMES BLAKE: I feel good. I had a week of practice last week at Saddlebrook, and I didn't have my best week against Benneteau, but after that, I've had enough success the last year or two to be able to figure out ways to win and to still be confident in my game after a bad day.
I am definitely confident. I feel like I still try to use my forehand to set up points and then to possibly eventually end points. I'm confident in my defense, my ability to scramble and stay in points.
Otherwise I just feel good about my game.

Q. How about the serve? Do you feel like you're getting enough points off of --
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, it's getting tougher and tougher. Guys are returning better and better, but I feel like my serve has improved quite a bit in the last few years to the point where I like to think of it as a weapon. It's never going to an Andy Roddick serve or an Ivo Karlovic serve, but it's something that for me is more effective in setting up points for me.
I'm not going to get a ton of aces, but I'm going to set up points and hopefully be able to hold serve quite comfortably.

Q. There's been some talk about making the tournaments be two out of three for the final, and here it's always been a tradition of five. That's one of the things that makes it special, I think. How do you feel about that as a player?
JAMES BLAKE: Well, I think they did two out of three last week at Indian Wells after it had always been five. I haven't asked the players yet, but I have a feeling they would think it's a good thing coming from Indian Wells to here, because to play three out of five, if it's a five-setter, it ends up wearing on your body quite a bit, and then to come here and play a whole other six straight matches, especially in the heat here.
But for this final, you know, the rest of us are going to Davis Cup, it could be tough on our bodies to play a five-setter before.
I think the general consensus is going to be to shorten it a little bit more because we are playing so many matches, and I think the Tour and the powers that be on the Tour are realizing how much stress we're putting on our bodies these days.
So to shorten it these days, hopefully the fans still get what they're looking for in a two-out-of-three set match. You're still getting some great shot making and some good drama in a two-out-of-three set match.
I would also like to have more experience in being in those finals so I could give you a better firsthand judgment of it, but that's just my experience from the outside looking in.

Q. Do you think it would affect the fan experience? A lot of fans love five-setters.
JAMES BLAKE: I don't know. I actually talked to a few friends the other day that weren't as much in the tennis world, and they said something about sometimes going three-out-of-five set matches and feeling like they could be too long if they're not as interested in a match or if it's not as exciting tennis. To be there for four hours could be too much for them sometimes.
I don't know, we'd have to find out from the fans, and I've always been a proponent of, what the fans like we need to do, because we're athletes but we're also in the business world of entertainers because that's how we're getting paid is the fans coming to see us and the sponsors paying us dollars when the fans come see us.
If the fans do like three out of five better, then we can suck it up for one match and play it for the finals. Those guys that are in the finals are probably pretty happy to be there so they'll play four out of seven if we need them to. I'm not suggesting it, but I'm just saying that the fans are what kind of dictates our sport hopefully, and we need to realize that and we need to be aware that the fans are what's putting the money in our pockets.

Q. After everything that happened in 2005 with your neck and shingles and all that, how did you find it in yourself to get back on the court and have such great success that you had in 2006 and still growing?
JAMES BLAKE: Well, I just realized how much I missed it when I was sick, and it gave me a little different perspective. I honestly think it made me a better player, and a hope a better person, too, because I just matured and grew.
I started putting a little less pressure on myself. I love playing. I'm a competitor. I want to win every time. I'm upset every time I step off the court and I lost, but I now know that it's not the end of the world.
I had great families and friends around me at that time, and they made me realize if I never win a tennis match again I still have family and friends around me. That makes a big difference when I'm out there on the court.
Before that I was still young and dumb and, I don't know, probably arrogant and thinking that the world revolved around tennis and that this was the most important thing in the world, and now I'm more aware of that and I'm sure I've got a lot more learning to do.
I'm probably still young and dumb, according to most people. But I just became a little more calm out there and it's gotten me better. I had some time off where a got a chance to work on some of my weaknesses, and now I feel pretty confident going forward.
THE MODERATOR: Thanks, James.

March 23, 2007

James Blake

KEY BISCAYNE, FLORIDA

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. What do you think happened?
JAMES BLAKE: I didn't play very well. It's a bad day. I'm going to worry about Davis Cup now. Slow start a little bit. Hit a couple bad points in the tiebreaker where I kind of gave away points, and then second set got rolling.
Third set, same thing: One bad game, and then I had a chance to break back and it didn't happen. I can't lose those kind of points and expect to win matches.

Q. Are you bewildered by this recent stretch, or do you feel like you know what's going on?
JAMES BLAKE: Well, I'm just a little disappointed in the way I've played, but I have to be realistic in knowing that there's going to be times in my career where I don't play as well as I can.
It's frustrating on the American hard courts where I usually have the best success, but there's always next year, there's always a next tournament luckily, and the next one is really important to me.
So I'll get a week of training and hopefully get a little confidence somehow in that week, because that's the biggest difference is just having the confidence on those big points to go for my shots and make sure that I feel really good going into those instead of maybe hoping the other guy is going to miss. Now I need to play those more confidently.

Q. It's a cliche, I guess, to say that it's harder to stay at the top than get to the top. But how true are you finding that right now?
JAMES BLAKE: It's definitely true, but I don't know if that was it today. I think it was just a little bit of the lack of confidence. I tried to do my best, and I thought I did a pretty good job of getting just as fired up to play this match as he did.
I know he was excited, didn't have anything to lose after losing to me last week. I still felt like I did a good job in preparing and knowing that he was going to come out firing and playing some of his best tennis. I was ready for that, and I just didn't execute.
It's definitely tough. The guys are shooting for you, the guys don't have anything to lose, but I definitely am a little disappointed because I thought I could have done better this week. But it's a long year. Maybe if I don't do well on the hard courts here, maybe the reverse will be true and I'll do really well on the European clay. Got to think positive.

Q. Did you feel a little tentative on that last shot of the tiebreaker?
JAMES BLAKE: What happened is I locked up. That's where my confidence came up. I would have just hit my shot and not even thought about it. I locked up at the last second and saw he was covering where I was going to go.
When I'm playing well I don't even look up and I don't notice what he's doing. I just hit my shot to where I want to go, and if they can come up with something good, good.
This time I looked up, but you can't do that on a tiebreaker on those kind of points. That's why I'm sitting here right now getting ready to think about when I go home.

Q. What happened to your wrist?
JAMES BLAKE: I've been taping my wrist for a little while, and I don't know if it was just too tight or whatever, but I started cramping just right under the tape, and it made it so I actually couldn't open my hand. I couldn't really grip the racquet. They just massaged it out. It was just kind of in a knot for a few minutes, and it's fine now.

Q. You're not concerned about it?
JAMES BLAKE: No.

Q. You said that it's a lack of confidence, but was it just today, or it's been a few days?
JAMES BLAKE: I don't know where it started, but maybe last week at Indian Wells, same thing: I had chances but didn't take advantage of them. Last year and when I'm playing well and playing confident, I go for those shots and I tend to -- more of those tend to go my way.
Today they didn't; last week they didn't. Maybe it's been two weeks, but I hopefully can turn it around. It turned around pretty quickly from being very confident to not as confident, so I hope it can turn right back around the same way.
I'm lucky enough to have had some success in the past to draw on, and I think I have enough of that to know that I can beat just about anyone in the world when I'm playing well and playing confidently.

Q. Is there any way in which you feel as if the last two years have caught up with you somehow?
JAMES BLAKE: I don't know. I really don't. I feel like I'm the same, if not a better player, so I don't think that's it. I still have the same hunger to succeed in these kind of tournaments and at the Grand Slams, so I don't know if that's caught up to me or what that could be.
I've definitely played a lot of matches, so that's a possibility. But I don't feel like my body is breaking down outside of the little cramp today. I don't feel like my body is breaking down or I'm getting old or anything like that. I still feel like I can have a lot of success. I don't think that's what it is, but you never know.
There's a million reasons out there that I could throw out as excuses, but I try not to make those kind of excuses. It was just a day I didn't execute.

Q. Could you talk about Serra? Did you expect such a level from him?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, he played well. I beat him last year and you beat someone one week and they're ranked higher you've got nothing to lose. I had a feeling he'd come out playing better this week, and he did.
His nerves remained steady in the big points, and he deserved to win today after the way I played on those big points.

Q. Is winning the only way to get the confidence back, or is there something else you do mentally? Do you look at tapes of yourself at your highest points or anything, or is it just winning a match and another match and another match?
JAMES BLAKE: Winning is the best answer. Any of those other ones, I don't think anyone has figured out a magic formula. You've just got to get out there and win.
Sometimes the only other thing that can help is trying to trick yourself. Hopefully I can count on being a dumb jock and I can fool myself into thinking that I can play confidently next time. I think I can do that.
It's just a little bit of tricking yourself, and before you know it, the confidence just comes naturally.