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DAVIS CUP QUARTERFINALSApril 7, 2006James BlakeCHILE vs. USA , RANCHO MIRAGE, CALIFORNIA THE MODERATOR: Questions for James. Q. I know it's hard to be objective about it, but it was a wonderful match. How did it get away from you? JAMES BLAKE: Fernando is a great player. Made it to the quarters of Wimbledon, a surface he feels pretty comfortable on. He did a great job of playing defense with his backhand. He came out with a great backhand to actually attack me towards the end. Third set, I think I was up. It looked like he was hanging his head a little. But Fernando is always dangerous no matter what. He started playing like the Fernando I've come to know, the one that can hurt you in an instant, the one that definitely is not pushing kind of the way he was in the first couple sets. He was going after his shots and they were going in. Q. At 30-15, had you won that point, you would have had a 40-15 advantage with a couple of match points coming up. What was that all about with the chair umpire? JAMES BLAKE: It would be great to see that on replay. Maybe that's why it's possibly becoming popular. No, I thought it was in. I don't know. I thought it might have been in. That's his job. It was on the closest line to him. Somehow still that made their captain complain, which was amusing to me. I thought in the past maybe I've had girlfriends that complained a lot, but he took that to a whole new level complaining when they get called. I felt like I did a pretty good job today of putting things out of my mind, worrying about my side of the court. I still tried to go back and win that next point. He actually kind of miss-hit a return that ended up being a winner on that 30-15 point when we did replay it. Those are the breaks. You know, even if it was a little bit of a miss-hit, that's probably where he meant to go, hit a winner. He ended up winning that game. My hat's off to him for playing a great rest of that game. Q. Do you think the timeouts and complaining amounted to gamesmanship? JAMES BLAKE: I mean, you said it. I mean, when you take one injury timeout and get your leg rubbed, then five or six games later get the same leg rubbed and say now it's cramping, and before it wasn't, I mean, you tell me what that is. You think that belongs in the Major Leagues or in the Bush Leagues? Whatever. That's Davis Cup. That's tennis. That's what they have to live with. That's not me. I do my best to play fairly and go about my business out there, worry about my side of the court. I couldn't worry about that during the match. If they can explain that any better, be my guest. It doesn't seem like the way Dwight Davis wrote it up. Q. Patrick has been through so many of these battles. In any way do you miss him? JAMES BLAKE: What is that? Q. Patrick has been through so many of these battles. In any way, did you miss him? JAMES BLAKE: Oh, no. Dean did a great job, kept me lighthearted out there, kept me focusing on what I needed to do. Any time I felt like I might have been cramping or my body might have been giving out at all or was tired or anything, he was in constant contact with Doug Spreen, our trainer. He was doing a great job of keeping my spirits up if I was down. Losing the third set, he kept me positive, did everything he could there. I mean, I just wish he could have come out and made a few first serves for me. Other than that, he did everything he could. That's all on me to lose that match. Even more than on me, it's on Fernando for playing well and coming through when he needed to. Q. Talk about your serve today. Seemed to come and go. JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, it wasn't great. Grass is probably the surface where the serve is most important. I felt like my serve has improved a lot, but clearly today it wasn't at its best. For a little while the sun was in our eyes on one side. That might have had a little bit of an effect. Otherwise, not a whole lot of confidence in it. Then after he's cramping, not cramping, I was maybe trying to just get it in a little too much. Every time I tried to kind of just guide my serve in, it gets worse. I need to really go up after it and be more aggressive. I maybe stopped doing that a little towards the end. If you guide a few, you're in the middle of a 30-All game or something, then it's counterintuitive to just step up there and rip it. He's actually pretty good at the that. He steps up and rips it almost any time. I didn't do that. I was trying to guide it a little bit too much. Q. I heard at one point during the match, did you request food at all because you were hungry? Did that play any factor in fatigue at all in the third and fourth sets? JAMES BLAKE: Four and a half hours long, of course I was hungry. I hadn't eaten since breakfast. Yeah, that's pretty normal. Any time there's a five-set match, you're going three-out-of-five, you generally take a little bread, banana, Power Bar, whatever, out there with you. Being Davis Cup, you got your whole support staff behind you so you don't need to worry about taking it out on your own. I just asked them, it came to me. I had a couple bananas on the court, had a few bites of bread. Just things to help keep me going. Wish I was still going. Q. How do you feel physically right now? Are you going to be okay for Sunday? JAMES BLAKE: Yeah. I mean, I've obviously felt better than playing a four-and-a-half-hour match. I'm not cramping. I feel healthy. I'm going to get a massage later, probably jump in the pool, kind of walk around, keep my muscles loose. I feel all right right now. Main thing, I just want to get a lot of food in me. Like I said, I was hungry out there. Four and a half hours, obviously lost -- burned quite a few calories. Got to get a few calories back in. Q. How long did it take to get the are comfort level on grass? First set was a feeling-out process with your footwork? JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, a little touch-and-go at the start. He actually surprised me a little bit by the way he was playing. He was defending very well had with his backhand. He's oftentimes a player that likes to be a first-strike player. As soon as you give him a ball to hit, he's going to take his opportunity. He wasn't doing that as much. That caught me off guard a little bit. Once I kind of got my bearings as to what he was trying to do, I started to try to make my adjustments. I made my adjustment, played great for a some sets. He made his adjustments, played great. That's the fun world of tennis. Q. (No microphone.) JAMES BLAKE: Not good. I mean, it's not fun. It hurts. I mean, hurts to let your team down. The guys have been great about picking me up, saying nothing to apologize about, I did my best. Just talked to my coach a little bit. Now I'm just going to hope this is a very meaningless match because I hope my point isn't even necessary on Monday if the other boys come through. If not, they'll have confidence in me that my body will be ready and I'll be out there fighting my heart out again on Sunday. I know it's disappointing right now. I sure as heck don't want to feel this disappointment times 10 on Sunday. I'm going to get myself ready and be ready to play for that. All I can do is go out there and do my best. That's what I did today. Q. You mentioned that Davis Cup is a different brand of tennis. In some way, did you think the gamesmanship today went over the line? JAMES BLAKE: I feel very comfortable with the way I acted on the court, very comfortable with everything I did. That's been the way I've tried to look at things. I feel like I have a healthier attitude. I feel like I did my part and I've gotten a much better perspective on just worrying about my side of the court. What they're doing is up to them. That's their business. If they don't feel like it went over the line, then that's their game to play. Q. Many of us remember your classic match against Agassi at the US Open. Now you've been involved in another match of similar proportions. How would you compare these two matches? JAMES BLAKE: Both very fun at times and both very disappointing at the end. Both of them I played well. I don't feel like I did anything wrong where I should hang my head in shame. Both of them were good players. It actually, you know, in hindsight, somewhat makes me feel good that both players showed tremendous emotion, positive emotion, in beating me, which means that they knew they had to play extremely well. Fernando obviously was excited and thrilled that he won today. Maybe a few years ago, it would have been a routine match. He might have beaten me easily. Now I know I'm playing at a level where guys do have to play their best. If Fernando has to play his best, he's top 20 in the world, he has to play his best on a surface he's comfortable on, beat me 10-8 in the fifth set. I have to take some positive from that. That's that he played too well on that. I know on another given day, I was a couple points away from beating him in three straight sets. Q. You are elevating the status of tennis, but you're not doing a whole lot to elevate the status of James Blake. Your record in five-set matches is not so good. You lost seven straight five-set matches, four of which you had two-set leads. Is that something you are going to need to work on? JAMES BLAKE: You want to kick my dog, too, while you're here? You know, it's not a whole lot of fun to lose those. Like I said, I'm doing my best. Whatever you want me to do... I haven't won them. I was two points from beating Andre. He hit two unbelievable winners. I was two points away from it today. He got a miss-hit winner and then played a couple great points. I mean, I wish I could come in here and say there's some reason, that it's nerves or something I could fix really quickly, my body gave out, anything. You know what, it's guys playing well. At this level, guys can play well. Sometimes, especially when you're down, a guy like Fernando and a guy like Andre, when they start swinging from the hips, swinging for the fences, they're so good, so talented, it's going to go in a lot of times. They went in. Q. By the way, do you have a dog? JAMES BLAKE: I got one for my mom. My mom has one. I travel too much. Q. James, is there anything that you can take from this in your match Sunday, assuming it is a match that counts? JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I know I'm playing well. I'm more comfortable on the grass now than I was five hours ago. I can take that, that I got a lot of time on the grass. I feel pretty comfortable. I took my eye off way too many volleys today. That's something I'm going to take into Sunday, make sure I take much better care of those volleys. I think they're somewhat similar players in the fact that they're looking for their forehand, kind of guarding against their backhands. Hopefully I can play the same or better, just get a win next time. Q. When you walked on the court, were you kind of surprised how many Chileans were on the court? JAMES BLAKE: No, I played Fernando quite a few times. I played Rios a couple times. I played Rios in Boston just after I left Harvard. He had almost as many fans as I did, two huge sections, screaming the "Chi-Chi-Chi-Le-Le-Le". Everywhere I go. I played Fernando in New Zealand. He had tons of fans. I played Marcelo in Tokyo. He had tons of fans. I know the Chileans, they travel and support their team. I wasn't surprised at all. I made sure before we went out there, I told our practice partners we need to be loud because they're going to be possibly louder than us, let's be sure to make some noise and show some support. Q. Can you talk about how draining this is emotionally, physically, maybe what you think about Fernando because he's going to have to bounce back and play the Bryans? JAMES BLAKE: I hope back in the hotel the Bryans are smiling right now. At least, even if I didn't help the team to a win, I might have tired him out just a little bit. For him to come back and play three-out-of-five doubles tomorrow and be ready to battle with Andy on Sunday, that's going to take a monumental effort. If he does, if he plays that well, continues to keep getting better, serving as big as he did... But what can we do but tip our hat to him? We want to keep putting the pressure on him and make him do that. I know Andy is going to put pressure on him serving a whole lot bigger than I was today, attacking that backhand. And the doubles, I got nothing but confidence in the way the Bryans have been striking the ball, really the way they've been hitting the ball for the last two years. He's going to have to come up with something special to beat them. Q. Were you at all surprised with his comfort level on the grass? He's been a quarterfinalist at Wimbledon. Was that a bit of a miscalculation that they'd be uncomfortable? JAMES BLAKE: No, no, no. I think a lot of people are blowing this out of proportion with the whole making them uncomfortable. It's more so our team, it's what is best for the team. Andy is very comfortable on grass. Andy, in my opinion, and I think the results has proved he's the second best grass court player in the world. It's partly to make sure he feels really comfortable. I feel relatively comfortable on the grass. The Bryans felt like, with the way they play, the way Massu and González play, their best match-up with them is on grass. This is a decision that was made for the good of the team, not necessarily to make them uncomfortable, but to make us more comfortable. I wasn't surprised at all at how comfortable Fernando was. He made the quarters of Wimbledon, beat pretty good players, Joachim Johansson. He actually played pretty good against Roger. I'm not surprised that he's comfortable on it. He hits the ball so big, he serves so well, I have a feeling he can do well at Wimbledon again, at Queen's, whenever he decides to play. I think he's a solid grass court player. Q. The last double-fault, were you trying to kick it? JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I don't remember. Oh, I was trying to kick it into his backhand, make him hit a backhand. A lot of those I was actually trying to hit a little slower than I normally would because I wanted him to create his own pace on his backhand. Just sometimes when you're trying to hit it slower, you decelerate, you decelerate a little too much, it flies, you don't have the spin on it. It didn't spin the way I wanted it to. It's going to happen. Q. You said after four hours, you're more comfortable on the grass. What did you learn out there? JAMES BLAKE: Well, for one, not take my eye off the volleys. I had a lot of chances to end points, ended up kind of looking up, putting them into the middle of the net, top of the net. Obviously, first serves are very important. I knew that. But just sometimes maybe I'm a slow learner. Maybe it takes a match for me to understand how important it is for me to get my first serve. What I learned, especially after the first set, is I still need to be aggressive. I think that's normally common sense on grass. For some reason at the start I wasn't that aggressive. I just need to keep playing the way I've been playing even on hard courts and just play -- continue playing aggressive because that's the way I play on hard courts, keep moving my feet. Q. You touched on the crowd a little bit. At the same time, there were more American fans out there than Chileans, yet the Chileans were louder. Did it feel like you were at home? JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, it still felt like we were at home. I still definitely heard plenty of support. The Net Heads had the drum going, plenty of chants and everything. Definitely feels like a home tie. Just feels like they got a lot of vocal supporters as well. That's fine. That's part of tennis. I try to put most of that stuff out of my head anyway. I think a lot of the stuff that was going on, the kind of background noise while people are serving, that happens at tour events, too. It's nothing to really get that confused about, get that emotional about. It's just what happens with tennis. We got to be able to concentrate when things like that are going on. THE MODERATOR: Thank you.
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