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 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 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'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 was tough to watch. I kept thinking, 'I wonder how I'd be doing if I was there.' Now this year to go out there, it's just a great feeling.
I've been really trying to hone the art of songwriting in a way that doesn't follow any sort of guideline.
Right now, it stings. But looking back on it, I think it will be a good week.
Then you get to come, basically, home. It's a great feeling before the Open.
It's a great feeling just to come out and be healthy,
It was tough conditions, I wanted to get ahead early but I couldn't quite do that. But I came through at the end of each set.
Miami is great. I'm trying to do my best to avoid distractions and get ready for tomorrow.
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.
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.
Maybe I'm a slow learner. But he doesn't make it easy. I'm starting to feel like one of those basketball players in the early '90s. You feel like you make Michael Jordan play well, but then every time he comes up and beats you and makes you realize why he's the best.
Dean is doing a great job. He's extremely laid-back and an extremely knowledgeable coach, which I think fits great with our team. He's there to help if we need it. He also knows not to probably go overboard; we all have our own coaches, we all know kind of what we're working on in our games, and he just is there to help keep our focus there this week and keep our spirits high, I guess.