US OPEN

August 30, 2001

James Blake

JAMES BLAKE: Just he made a comment in the heat of the moment on the court to the umpire. Probably didn't even occur to him that I heard it. Then we went on and played the rest of the match.

JAMES BLAKE: He said that there was a similarity between the line judge and myself.

JAMES BLAKE: My reaction was to try to win the match. I didn't want anything to cloud my judgment, cloud my thought process. Just intent on playing my game, executing my game plan on the court. I continued to try to do that. I actually felt like I was playing great even in that fourth set until my body just didn't agree with me out there. But I just tried to put -- I mean, it's just a general plan when you go out there: anything that intrudes with your thought process, try to kind of block it out and don't worry about it.

JAMES BLAKE: I mean, obviously my parents have been through a lot more than I have. They may have different opinions. But I just hope it wasn't. I'm generally a positive thinker. I give people the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes maybe too much. But I definitely am going to give him the benefit of the doubt this time because it's in competition. I mean, you're doing anything you can to win the match. If you feel like you have a couple bad calls or something, it can really frustrate you. I know I've thrown racquets and gone through tantrums and stuff when I've gotten a bad call or done things. You probably don't mean it. Even just after breaking a racquet or something like that, you feel bad about what you did. You feel like it's not really who you are. Maybe whatever he meant by it, maybe he does feel bad about it now. You know, you move on from that. I mean, I definitely give people the benefit of the doubt if they're out on the court. If it's something he was taking the time to think about and said something in a press conference or interview, then I maybe would have given it some credence. Is that the right word?

JAMES BLAKE: Good. Been out of school for a while.

JAMES BLAKE: Well, I did hear it on the changeover. I looked up. I then looked over to the umpire -- not to the chair umpire, but to the umpire he was referring to. On the changeover, I have a routine I was trying to go through. I just tried to keep that, my drinks and everything. I tried to go back to that, come out and end the match quickly because I could feel my body wasn't going to hold up. I was just trying to go out there and win that as quickly as I could.

JAMES BLAKE: That's one of the things in the heat of the moment.

JAMES BLAKE: No. I mean, I said something about his fighting hard or something - and he was - he did fight really hard. I said that after the match. He beat me today. He fought from beginning to end. He played a great first set where he really hung in there when he was down Love-40 in one of those games.

JAMES BLAKE: Sure, there's a line. I'm still young. Maybe I'll learn it when I get older.

JAMES BLAKE: He's young, too. But, I don't know, I didn't feel like -- I mean, I felt like if he said something in his press conference, interview, explained himself then, he didn't cross the line. He maybe felt bad about it. It was just something he said during a match.

JAMES BLAKE: No. After the match he said, "You played a great match." I did as well as I could, so I felt like a played a great match, too.