US OPEN

September 5, 2005

James Blake

JAMES BLAKE: Same thing I've been thinking about like with my coach in talking is, after all the matches I played last week or two, the toughest part about playing these matches I think is not getting ahead of myself when I get ahead. And if I get down, not just kind of really throwing in the towel and saying, "I've been playing well, so I should really win this," being so down on myself. We've always talked about being up a set and a break doesn't mean anything. Being up two sets and a break doesn't mean anything. You've got to keep moving for it. I just tried to apply that the other way. Being down a set and a break doesn't mean anything. Being down a set point, just keep playing my game. I felt I wasn't moving my feet too well up till that point. I got that point. Then the next game he got a little tight, I felt like. I think he double-faulted once or twice. Once I realized I was in it, started moving my feet a little better, going after it a little more, just trying to take it into my hand as opposed to trying to -- at the start felt like I was pushing and leaving it in his hands, and he took advantage of that. Once I got it into my hands, I felt like I was dictating better and just things seemed to happen a lot better when I'm going for a little bit more at that point, going for my shots.

JAMES BLAKE: You know, I know I'm not in a Hollywood script, otherwise I probably would have won a lot more this year. I just think, you know, this is all the hard work I've been putting in, all the time I've spent on the court, in the gym. It's just, you know, I've always known I had a chance to go deep in a major or go and win a tournament and play with these guys because I can put together a good set here, a good match here. It's just a matter of putting it all together. And I think now it's kind of the culmination of the maturity I have to not be down a set and a break, down a set point and just kind of, you know, play a real loose point and say, "Forget it," worry about what's going to happen after the match, am I going to go back to Tampa, just not thinking about things like that. Thinking about getting that point, getting back into the match, and just playing my game. So I don't think of it as fate or anything. I think it's a lot of hard work.

JAMES BLAKE: I think I'll still speak admirably of him - before the match, after the match, if someone interviews me during the match, I'll probably say nice things about him. He's really a true gentleman, one of the friendliest guys in the locker room. That's something that's impressive when you don't need to do that because you're one of the legends of the sport. You've got everything you can ever dream of, but he still knows how to treat people. And that's something that I really admire. He's helped me with scouting reports, helped me when I go out to Vegas, he hooks me up with hotels. He's just a great guy that will help out young guys with anything, leading by example, you know, leading by his words. He's someone that you can tell your kids to look up to and be proud of it. That's kind of the goal I have as a tennis player and a public figure. He's obviously had a lot more success on the court. But he's also a great human being. I'm proud to be a competitor with him. He's been my biggest win in my career so far to date. Hopefully it will be again. But I don't think either of us are going to go out there and hang our heads in shame after the match. I think we have a similar attitude. We're going to go out there, leave it all on the court. He's been through this so many times - 35 years old, his 20th Open. I don't feel like he's going to be nervous. He's going to go out there and just let it rip. I'm going to try to do the same. I don't think I'll be nervous either because I know I got nothing to lose. Andre Agassi in the quarterfinals of the US Open, I'm sure as heck not going to go home and say I had a bad tournament. I'll probably be disappointed right after the match, but other than that, I'm going to go down swinging, giving a hundred percent. Once I get over the initial loss, I'll think about some of the good things that have happened this year, some of the good things that happened this tournament. But, you know, if I win, I won't be surprised either. I won't get ahead of myself. Similar to today, if I get up a break, if I'm up two sets to one and a break, I'm not going to start getting head of myself, thinking this is Andre Agassi, the legend, I'm going to beat. I'm just going to try to keep the same maturity and the same focus and perspective I've had so far this tournament and this whole year.

JAMES BLAKE: Well, I think they confirmed my wildcard a little while ago, but I think the Mets are not looking so good right now, unfortunately. About a week ago, when I wore that Beltran jersey on the court, they were looking pretty good. Maybe I jinxed them by doing that. Maybe I jinxed them by going to batting practice over there, too. I don't know. They're not looking so great any more. I still got faith they'll turn it around hopefully.

JAMES BLAKE: Absolutely. One of the first things I ever learned there and have kept since then is my work ethic, because my dad was a volunteer there. He's the one that helped teach me. Just they had kids working there. I'm pretty sure my brother and are the only two professional athletes to come out of there. They're really just trying to make good citizens. They still worked us so hard every Sunday when we'd go down there. We'd come home from that just beat from doing sprints, from doing pushups, from doing situps, from jumping rope. It wasn't about turning you into pro athletes. It was just about learning how to work hard and enjoying it, seeing the progress, seeing that, okay, the first day you did it, you could do 30 pushups, now a month later you can do 40, ad now a month later you can do 45. Seeing that progression, being happy with it, happy with whatever success you have. If you're the best one there and you're doing the most or if you're one of the worst ones there, but you're still improving. Just comparing yourself only to yourself, not to the others, and working hard and enjoying that progress. And I still do that today because I don't want to go out here and compare myself to Roger Federer, I don't want to go out here and compare myself to someone that's in the quallies here. I want to just do the best I possibly can. That's something I learned at a pretty young age.

JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I think the biggest thing was up until that point, I really felt flat-footed. I don't know what it was. I didn't come out feeling nervous. I didn't really -- I guess that could have been part of the letdown, you know, after having such a big win two days earlier. But I just didn't feel like my feet were moving. I felt like I was getting almost to the ball and then just kind of blocking it. Getting over to my forehand, just blocking it, not making all the little extra adjustment steps that you have to make, that you see guys like Hewitt, Nadal and Agassi make that are so important. And I wasn't doing that. It's something that's so easy. And I thought about it. It's so easy to think of and to realize you're doing it. But sometimes it's still hard to adjust. Because you know if you step in and you get in the right position, you're going to go for it. Then you start knocking down the back screen a few times. You got to stick with it until you get in position and hitting the right shot. I started moving my feet once he felt the nerves. I started going after my shots a little more. I said, "You know what, I have to do this. I'm not going to win otherwise. He's not going to keep getting tight. He's not going to give me each set. I have to kind of earn them." And then I started doing that. I started moving my feet. Then it just felt -- it's something that's so easy once you start doing it. It seems so simple. It seems like you should have been doing it all the time. I wish it was that easy, but it's not always that easy to do. I managed to do that. Managed to start moving my feet a lot better. The rest is history.

JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I mean, my plan for most of the match was to take my backhand cross-court to his backhand and attack his backhand because it's tougher for him to hurt you with his backhand, I think. But once I did start moving my feet well, I felt great. They were a little bit further up in the court, so I felt good. I knew he'd been sitting on that. I mean, he knew my game plan. I knew his game plan was going to be attack my backhand. So he caught me a couple times by surprise, and I caught him a couple times by surprise just thinking, you know, he's looking for me to keep rolling it cross-court, looking for me to keep rolling it cross-court. Let's take the freebie. I felt good about it. I felt it worked.

JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I definitely think most of my maturity, different perspective, comes from last year and everything I went through. It's not something I could have learned on a practice court or even in a match really, I don't think. It was just a matter of seeing that there is more to life. There is also a finite career that I have in front of me. I'm not going to play forever. I'm not going to be this healthy, this fit, this strong for the rest of my life. I only have a certain amount of time. It gave me the hunger to want to succeed and want to continue working as hard as I possibly can to take advantage of this career. It also gave me the perspective that there's more to life. So when I'm down I'm not going to panic, I'm not going to get nervous, I'm not going to throw my racquet and whine and cry and say "Why me" or anything like that, because there's a lot worse things in life than loses a tennis match. I think that really helped. It really does -- it seems real now, but like when I'm out on the court, I'm really just thinking about the match. But it takes a little while to set in. You know, right after the match, just to look up to my box, look up to my friends and think how much they've helped me get to where I am, it doesn't seem real. Because, I mean, I want to give back to them so much. I want them to experience this happiness, but I always have guarded hopes of it. I really never expected to be giving back this quickly and showing them such a good time and having this many fans come out and support me. I just wouldn't have expected it this soon. It seems somewhat surreal at the time. But now I just think about it and I think, you know, there's no reason for it to feel surreal because I've done all the work. I've put in my time. I've done everything I feel like I should to be in this position.

JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I think I've gone through that, I don't know the exact dates, but I know that year I kind of started coming up, then I did real well. I ended up the year in the 20s or something. Then the start of that next year is when you have all those points to defend and everything. It's your first time really doing that, really having all those high expectations. Is it going to keep going up? That's when I started thinking, "All right, I'm playing a guy 60 in the world, 70 in the world, I should win. All I have to do is play pretty average." I learned pretty quickly -- it took me a little while, I'm not that bright. It took me a little while for me to realize that's not going to work, playing 90%, playing just average isn't going to win against anyone on tour. I took some rough losses. I feel like I was back at the point where I realized that and made my adjustments, that no matter what someone's ranked, if they're ranked below me or ahead of me, they're trying to beat me. I'm going to have to go out there and prove to them every single time I'm there to beat them. I'm not there to just push and hope they beat themselves. I was getting back to that point. I felt like I was really starting to play well again before I got injured last year. For that year, about maybe half a year, three-quarters of a year before that, I'd say I was focused on the wrong things. I was just worried about kind of hanging on. As opposed to just really getting better, really improving every single match and playing my game, I was just trying to kind of hang on to what I had done the year before that.

JAMES BLAKE: Geeze, I don't know. I think it must have been here. Yeah, I think I saw him here back when he had those lime green shorts hanging out of the denim shorts. I think I got a pair of those, too, the denim ones. Not the lime green ones, I couldn't pull that off. The denim shorts, I remember that. He had the long hair, the earring. People didn't know if his name was Agassi or Agassi. I remember that, being in school and talking about how talented he was.

JAMES BLAKE: Man, had to be like fifth or sixth grade. Yeah, I was probably like 10 or 11 years old. What was he, he was 25. I guess I probably started kind of late because he was probably in his early 20s by then, taking the world by storm already.

JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, well, I didn't go into playing Nadal thinking that way. I thought I was just going to play within myself. I think too many times in the past I've gone out playing a guy that's ranked that high thinking I have to play a perfect match and going for too much and playing kind of into their hands and letting them play a little conservative and me beating myself. I didn't do that against Nadal. I maybe played a perfect match, but it felt like it was within myself. I didn't feel like I was going for too much. I felt like I was going for my shots when I had them and not overplaying. That's the same thing I'm going to try to do against Andre. I'm going to try to play within myself. If he comes up with shots that are too good, I'll tip my hat to him and say too good. If I do need to adjust, if I'm getting beat, if I'm down a set and a break, he's really beating me that way, I might have to adjust and figure out some other way to play. But I'm always going to try to keep playing within myself. I'm not going to go out just trying to blast winners from every corner just because it's Andre Agassi. I'm going to try to play my game. I think that's a better barometer to find out where you are. Instead of going out and if you have that one unbelievable day where everything's going in, you still don't really know how good you are because you were that good on one day, but it's not going to keep up. If you lose and were going for everything, you don't know how good you are because you didn't play your game. I want to go out and find out how good I am playing my game.

JAMES BLAKE: Well, I think it's -- I hope it's a very fair crowd. I think my friends are definitely going to be here. But I know he's got fans all over the world, especially here. He's won here. I mean, he's such a legend. He's got so many fans that I think they're also going to be cheering very vocally for him. But I think we're both respectful of each other, I think. So I think the fans -- I hope the fans take a cue from that and are cheering winners, not really cheering the errors or the double-faults or anything like that. Just fair about it. That's all I hope for, but I really don't know because it's going to be a night match, I think. People have a Heineken or two. They get a little rambunctious. They might scream a little too early. I might make a get, he might make a get they didn't expect. I am sure that is going to happen. He's dealt with it a million times in his career. I've dealt with it a few times here already. I don't think we're going to be affected too much by it. He's an unbelievable professional. I'm never going to be angry at a New York crowd. I don't think either of us will be affected negatively.

JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, that's always what I've wanted people -- that's the kind of respect I want. I don't want respect just because I'm in the Nike ad or just because I've got some sort of an endorsement deal or something. I want people to look at me as a tennis player, as a legitimate player that's won a lot of matches that they don't want to see in the draw next to them. I'm doing my part these last couple weeks to try to prove that to them. I think it's been a lot of fun for me because the first time I came up, it was all about proving myself, proving I belong on this tour, proving I belong among these top guys. Then obviously I fell back and then got injured. Now I'm getting a chance to do it again. That was what this year is going to be about, kind of enjoying myself but also proving that I can do it again. Most people only have to prove themselves once. I'm getting a chance to do it again. It really is a source of pride for me that I've been able to do it again because I don't know if a lot of guys would have enjoyed going to Tunica, Mississippi, Forest Hills, playing a couple challengers when they're ranked 200 in the world just to get back to this point. But I did that. I'm really happy about it. I think people will now see that. They'll see that I'm not just going to take wildcards and just worry about, you know, my prize money or my image or anything like that. I'm not afraid to go down to challengers and play in front of 10 or 12 people. I just love playing and I love proving that I belong. I feel like I'm doing that again. Hopefully here I can prove that I belong even on the big stage. Up until now I hadn't been this far in a Grand Slam, so people might have said I couldn't do it on the big stage. I've played some pretty big Davis Cup matches, but I think now I'm trying to prove myself in a big way. It's going pretty well so far. I think it helps with the new perspective and new kind of maturity that I think I've found.