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 figure most people, it's going to be their game plan to attack my backhand, ... I got a lot more confidence in it. When I have time to hit it, I feel like I can really go after it and hurt people with it, as opposed to playing defense all the time. I think I passed him with three backhands that first game and that's probably something he wasn't expecting.
I brought that up just about every 20 minutes of the match. 'Yeah, good call, it's going to go quick.'
I definitely feel like I'm a better player than when I was 22, ... There are certain things that have improved: My defense has improved a lot, my serve has improved a lot. I feel like mentally I'm just a little stronger. I don't think there is any way I would be able to do what I'm doing right now two or three years ago.
I can't stop smiling right now, ... If I could play here every tournament, I would never retire.
It's pretty memorable, to beat these two brothers in the same tournament. I don't know if anyone has done that before. Olivier must have had a pretty good report from his brother.
It's pretty crazy. It means I'm playing great tennis.
It's pretty amazing to me because I was a wild card getting in here.
Then you get to come, basically, home. It's a great feeling before the Open.
It's a good feeling when they're on your side. We travel the world, so it's very seldom that we're in our home town.
It's a great feeling just to come out and be healthy,
It really surprises me that people in this day and age still write such busy music and fill up every space with layer upon layer of sound... it's like musical landfill.
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.