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'm definitely flattered and humbled any time I can put my name in the same sentence with Arthur Ashe. That's something that is always an accomplishment to me. He's a role model for more than just tennis players, I think.
I?m really good friends with Kevin, his little brother who is my age, we go way back ... So I always want to see how J.J. is doing. I?m really proud of him and it?s fun to see Fairfield High kids doing so well.
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.
He's one of the hottest players on the circuit right now, ... And I'm playing close to my best, so it should be a good match.
He's not quite ready for it. Most 16-year-olds aren't. It's very rare that a kid of that age is ready to compete at this level.
He's got so many fans that I think they're also going to be cheering very vocally for him.
I could not have dreamed a better ending than this week, ... Everything clicked. I was feeling good all time.
I can't believe how well things are going, ... I can't say enough how much this is a dream come true.
I can't believe how well things are going. I am waiting for the alarm clock to go off and I'm going to wake up, but I don't want to.
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.
If I couldn't play tennis again, am I still going to be happy going back to school, maybe going to business school, doing whatever else I could do? ... Would I be able to be happy if my eye never came back to normal and I couldn't really be athletic at all the rest of my life? Could I find a way to still be happy? All those I tried to answer yes.
If I'm playing tennis like this, I'm a guy that NOBODY wants to play. I think there are a lot of guys who don't want to see me in their draw.