US OPEN

September 3, 2005

James Blake

JAMES BLAKE: Uhm, I don't know but I definitely have a great respect for his speed. But not only is he, in my opinion, possibly the best mover out on tour because he really -- seems like even when he guesses, if he guesses wrong, he still has the ability to get back and get to a shot. So you never feel that comfortable. Especially since his speed is so good, but he plays defense so well, when he gets to the ball he's got a great court awareness knowing that you're coming in, he needs to get it low. Or you're staying back, he has the opportunity to float it deep and make you have to hit a tough shot. It's not as easy as it looks to hit a ball six feet from the baseline, hit a cold winner, when he's got no pace on it, especially against a guy that's that fast and that far back in the court. It's not easy to do, and he knows that. He does a great job every time about doing that. I don't know how many winners I hit today, but whatever it is, you can double it, because that's how many winners basically I would have hit against other players. I felt like I had to hit two winners at least to win each point.

JAMES BLAKE: What's wrong with my quickness today? I hope nothing. I was getting some pretty good shots. I just felt like, I mean, I was trying to dictate and it felt like he had to answer. He came up with a lot of great answers, but luckily I kept playing pretty darn well and was able to dictate a lot.

JAMES BLAKE: Uhm, like I said out there, I think with all due respect to Rafael, he's going to be a great champion, one of the best ever possibly, and already is a champion, but I got to give my best win to Andre Agassi, being a legend, everything he's accomplished. That match, it just seemed like everything was going right for me, as it did today similarly. But, you know, it was emotional to really beat Andre Agassi, someone I idolized.

JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, well, hopefully I can have some fond memories of that win and make some more memories. But he is truly a class act and someone I look up to. And it would be a lot of fun. I mean, if I'm playing him in, what would that be, the quarterfinals, if I'm playing him in the quarterfinals of the Open, I mean, if someone had told me that a year ago that I'd have to go out and lose 0, 0 and 0 in the quarterfinals of the Open to Andre Agassi, I'd say, I'd take it in a heartbeat. If that happens, so be it. If I do get in that situation, I'm going to go out there and play the same way I've been playing, not be afraid, like I felt today, not afraid to play Rafael Nadal, not afraid to play Andre. But I will, you know, as I respected Rafael Nadal today, I will have a great deal of respect for Andre when I go out there, if I play him.

JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, crowd's unbelievable. I mean, a few times today a couple of those break points, a couple of set points and that matchpoint, you know, when they really got on their feet and started screaming, I really couldn't even hear a thing. I started thinking this is what people talk about when they say they can't hear themselves think. That loud, I could have screamed at the top of my lungs and no one would have noticed. To hear that, it forces you to, "Okay, I need to just think about this point, because I can't think about every single person here screaming." You try not to think of the magnitude of 20 some odd thousand people screaming for you. So it was amazing, having my -- it looked like Rafael was getting a little upset towards the end of the match noticing that my fans were pretty vocal, as I think they're going to be against anyone. I'm proud that they never really make it personal and they never do anything too negative towards the other player. They're always just trying to encourage me. And I really do appreciate that. Just like in the finals of New Haven, they chanted Lopez' name at the end at the ceremony. I do appreciate the fact that they try to have class. And maybe it helps that it was during the day and they maybe didn't have quite as many Heinekens today. That helps, I think.

JAMES BLAKE: No. I mean, that was not easy for me. Someone told me I won I want to say 16 of the last 17 points or something, but it didn't feel like that. Like I said earlier, I had to win each point two or three times. I was never expecting him to miss. Every single time I hit a shot, I expected it to come back the way he was playing, and that's just out of respect for him and knowing that he can reel off winners, he can play defense better than anyone else out there, I think. I don't think he lost his focus. I think I got more and more confidence, especially once I got the break. That second game I broke him, I don't remember exactly the points, I remember saying to myself, "I'm going up and going after these." I started going for his second serve a little more and ripping forehands. You know, if those are going in, I like my chances against a lot of people out there. And they were going in. It's tough. When someone's dictating the way I was and you're down two sets to one and a break, it's not easy to keep coming up with the shots he was coming up with. I think he did a great job in fighting, as everyone saw how well he did at that in the French Open. But I managed to get him on the hard courts.

JAMES BLAKE: I definitely did. Like I said, once I got that first break -- first break was kind of, uhm, I don't want to say lucky because lucky is involved in every match, but I think he double-faulted, maybe he missed a relatively routine forehand, got a let cord and missed the forehand. You know, that's when I did get a little confidence, saying, you know, what, this guy's human, this guy makes mistakes too. He plays defense as well as anyone. He can loop that ball so high, make it really difficult and uncomfortable for you. He's still human. If I keep grinding and making my shots and putting a little pressure on him when I can, I have a chance. And when I got up that break, I got a ton of confidence in knowing that he is human, he can make mistakes, he's still a 19-year-old kid out there, and I can go for my shots. If I keep pressuring him, things can happen.

JAMES BLAKE: You know, this is as deep as I've gone in a Slam, so I don't know. I don't have a whole lot of experience in saying, "Well, this time I made the semis," or, "This time I made the finals." I know right now I couldn't be more thrilled about this. To say I'm taking it one match at a time is an overstatement because I haven't even thought about next match yet. I'm still thinking about how great a feeling I have right now and the fact that my phone still hasn't stopped ringing since I've been in here. I'm really thrilled about the way I'm playing, and keeping this level consistently through New Haven, into this tournament, I'm just really happy about the way things are going. I'm not thinking about next week. I'm thinking about being into the second week. Happy about that. Hopefully I can keep this going in the next match. I'm definitely not thinking that far ahead right now.

JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, every time a question like that comes up, I do reflect and think about last year watching it on TV. A little different. It's a little different on this side than on that side. It's, you know, so much fun. I think about that time last year, I was wondering if I would play in the US Open again. At that point I was just, I mean, 24 years old, you don't want to just have memories, you don't want to just have thoughts of the end of your career at that point, saying, you know, "I had a lot of fun at the US Open, I had some great times, I had some good matches, all my fans had a lot of fun," and at that point I thought, you know, it's too bad if that's the end. I really wish I could get back there again and show people that I can still play this game. And now to get here, to know the hard work I put in, the hours when I could -- really couldn't see too well, balance very well on the court, just hitting balls just for the sake of hitting balls so I don't get blisters on my hands, so I don't kinda completely lose the feel or something, I know a lot of people wouldn't have done that. A lot of people wouldn't have then used that off-season, or the November-December time when I started feeling a little better, to work as hard as I possibly could just on the chance that I'll be back to 100%. I didn't know even then that I would be back to 100%. To work as hard as I did to get back there, then go through the first few months where I was at times playing like I didn't really know how to play the game, then to go through that, still try to keep a positive attitude, I do think about that, that a lot of people wouldn't have been able to get through that. I also think about the fact that I'm lucky to have the people that were around me to help me get through that. If I didn't have my coach Brian Barker there every day telling me, keeping things in perspective, just being honest about how rough it was last year, and then being honest at the beginning of this year, saying, Yeah, that was a bad match but, you know, what can you expect, you got to think about the bigger picture and think that you're going to just try and get better. If this is the case, you're going to have to find a way to be happy with it. If that's how good a player you are, so be it. Kept getting better and better. All you can do is work as hard as you can. Just like he said before this match, Go out there, we're proud of you no matter what, do your best, no one's going to -- no one's going to think anything but you gave your best today. I went out there, I gave my best, and today it was good enough. I hope it will be on Monday as well.

RAFAEL NADAL: This is the first one, you know -- first two matches I felt like there was a little bit of pressure on me. People had seen how well I did in New Haven. I was playing great. My friends were so psyched and so happy and really thinking, "All right, now it's the Open, he's going to do even better, everything's going to go great." So I felt like I did have a little bit of pressure on me, not that I shy away from that, I really enjoy that, I think it's an opportunity to do something great. But today I went out knowing that I had no pressure. Nadal has proven himself on clay, on hard courts, that he's going to be around for a long time. And, I mean, him and Roger have just really dominated this year. And so I went in with nothing to lose. But I also thought, you know, this is -- I thought a little bit about, you know, being bad luck in the last three weeks, the only people I lost to were Andy and Roger. And now thinking, "All right, now I got to play the No. 2 guy as opposed to I played No. 1 and 4 already. I want to see if I can beat one of them." I think it helped me knowing that I had played really close with Roger, played really close with Andy. Just, you know, looking back to those matches and people telling me, you know, this could be good. It just shows you can play with them. Now I guess I believe them.

JAMES BLAKE: Well, what I'm doing is I've already had I believe 10 racquets put up on my website to be auctioned off. I'm very fortunate to have some great fans that apparently as soon as they announced that the other day on USA, the bids had been going at around $400, and immediately they went up to $1,000. So I'm hoping to raise -- all that money is going to the Red Cross. I'm going to donate a portion of my winnings here, for sure, to the Red Cross, depending maybe how I do. Hopefully it will keep getting bigger and bigger as I get further and further. But in terms of the government's reaction, I know probably not supposed to talk politics too much, especially to the press, but I feel this is a crisis that deserves a lot of attention, and if possible more attention. I don't want to contradict our President too much, but... Actually I'll leave it at that. Don't want to contradict our President because, you know, we have to follow him and follow his lead.

JAMES BLAKE: It was definitely a different feeling because in those matches -- and I feel like if I had this match three years ago against a player like Nadal, I don't think I would have won it because I think after playing that first set, playing really well, solid, winning it, then losing that second set, I might have panicked and said, I really got to raise my level, I got to do something different, I got to change it. After that second set today I didn't feel like I needed to change. It's one set all. Why do I need to panic? He should be panicking just as much as I am. So I went out and played the same, played as solid as I could, got a break middle of that set. I didn't feel -- I didn't feel like there was so many crazy thoughts going through my head. As soon as I got a break in the third set, I didn't start thinking, What if I actually win this? What's going to happen? What am I going to do? What am I going to tell my friends? I didn't start panicking and getting ahead of myself. That's something you can't really teach. You can't really go out on the practice court and get. That's just playing tennis. For me, it took a little while. It took maybe some life lessons. But it's something I'm proud of now that I do a lot better than I did a few years ago. It makes as big a difference as anything else in my game, as big a difference as practicing my forehand, as big a difference as hitting my second serve a little bit better, just having that belief in myself and the confidence just to play my game. It's going to show, I think, hopefully in my results. But definitely I see it in my game being improved based on just having that belief in my game.

JAMES BLAKE: I think it was me serving about as well as I could. I think, when was it I looked at that ATP players' weekly a few weeks ago, you look at the return stats, and Rafael Nadal is No. 1 in every single one, whether it's first return points won, second return points won, break points converted, he's No. 1 in all of them. So I knew it was going to be tough. The first set I served great; I won that set. Second set I didn't serve very well; I lost that set. Kind of seemed as my first serve went, the match went. I served great in the third and fourth sets. I won those sets. It seemed like if I just kept serving well, I was going to get my looks at his serve. That's the one thing you can look at in his game that possibly can keep improving, is his serve. And so he gives you looks at it. It's not like playing Andy where you can get down a break and then really have no chance at times if he's serving well. Rafael gives you looks. He spots it well, but he doesn't overpower you with it and he kind of beats you -- you end up missing quite a few just based on how he backs it up. He can really hurt you if you just float it into the middle, he can take that forehand and start whipping you around. But I'm going to get looks at that. If I take care of my serve and have some confidence to go for shots on his serve, it looks to be in my favor. That's why once I started serving well, got past that second set where I just had a tough serving set, it felt great. And I hope that can continue.

JAMES BLAKE: Tough to say if it would have happened with just experience on the court. I'd been on tour for a while and it hadn't happened quite the same as it did after last year. I think I do owe a lot of it to having a new perspective, to if I lose a match, it's not the worst thing in the world. And just go out and play your best, and I know, you know, that one of the last things I spoke to my dad about, and -- when he told me that he was proud of me, you know, that was it for me, him telling me that that's my idol, that's someone I respect more than anyone in the world. I was so proud and in awe of him. For him to say he was proud of me, I know now that he was proud of me no matter if I win or lose, but as long as I -- he always taught me the work ethic and doing your best and acting appropriately. I feel like I did that today. Whether I won or lost, I gave 100%. I acted according to the manner that I know he would think is appropriate. So if I won or lost this match, I'd like to think that he was proud of me. It's just icing on the cake that I won it and played as well as I did. If I didn't have that and, you know, just kind of knowing that in the back of my mind, I don't know if it would have come just from playing tennis. It comes from kind of life's lessons, I think.

JAMES BLAKE: You know, I always thought it was weird for people to say, but I do actually think of him every single day. And I never thought that was possible, but I do. In terms of thinking of him out on the court, it's not often, but sometimes things aren't going well and I want to throw my racquet, I want to get a little upset, I want to get down on myself, I want to think, you know, how rough it is, how bad it is because I'm down a set and a break or something, I'll think about it, and I'll think about the fact that he never complained when he had cancer. He didn't complain when he was having surgery, when he was having chemo, when he was having radiation, he didn't complain. He would always keep a positive attitude, keep real upbeat. You know, if he can do that through something like that, I'd feel like much less of a man if I started complaining too much about being down a set and a break or losing a couple matches in a row. So I think about him at times on the court then and hope it's going to help me on the court as well, the fact that, you know, if I'm down a set and a break, I better keep a positive attitude. That's a lot better than getting down on yourself, focusing on the negative and pretty much giving up. I'm never going to give up in a match. I've tried to never give up in a match before, but I know I've given less than 100% unfortunately. I've never done that this year and I don't think I'll ever do it again.

JAMES BLAKE: It was out (laughing). I don't know if they'll show that on the replay or whatever, but it was called out. I was just hitting it back, screwing around. It was already called out. I think he was actually arguing the call because he thought it was in. But I saw it. I mean, I looked and -- but if they hadn't called it out, I probably wouldn't have made that shot because I would have been a little nervous. I really thought it was out, too.

JAMES BLAKE: No, they called it out. As soon as they called it, that's when I went back and just kind of screwing around hit it between my legs.

JAMES BLAKE: I spend kind of whenever I'm training, whenever I get a chance to go back there, I'll go back there. I'll probably go back to Connecticut after this, but as soon as I hang out with my friends for a couple of days, I'll head back to Tampa. I'll be there a lot during the off season.

JAMES BLAKE: Percentage-wise, 15 weeks out of the year.

JAMES BLAKE: Who do I train with, Saddlebrook, Mardy Fish is there, Jeff Morrison, Graydon Oliver, Xavier Malisse, all guys live around there.

JAMES BLAKE: I've done a couple workouts with him, but I mainly train with -- I get workouts from a friend of mine named Mike Nishihara and a guy named Zach Lamark (ph).

JAMES BLAKE: I actually forgot. I was supposed to call him for a scouting report, but luckily my coach has seen Rafael play a whole lot. I got a scouting report from him. It slipped my mind to call Andy. I did check however many voice mails I have now, and one of them is from Andy, so I got to give him a call back this time and make sure to thank him. I'm sure it's a message first congratulating me and then making fun of me for something I'm sure I did wrong on the court. I'll get back at him and I'm sure it will be a similar message where I make fun of him.