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PACIFIC LIFE OPEN

March 19, 2006

James Blake

INDIAN WELLS, CALIFORNIA

THE MODERATOR: Questions.
Q. How do you stop the "Federer Express"?
JAMES BLAKE: Got up early, had some chances. Continue playing like that would be a good start. Obviously, he raised his level, too. Along with a couple of mistakes by me at the end of that first set, he really picked his level up and played unbelievably, put pressure on me on all my service games, was kind of cruising on his, forcing me to hit shots I didn't want to hit, putting me in uncomfortable positions. That's what he's best at.
He did everything he needed to do to win, along with a couple of little breaks at the end of the first set where I maybe tried to do a little too much or gave him too much credit. Instead of making him come up with a great passing shot, I went for too much, ended up missing, gave him freebees. You can't do that against the No. 1 player in the world.
Q. Are you wearing that hat with purpose today?
JAMES BLAKE: I wish they had gotten a win. Kick me while I'm down. I come off the court, they lose. Right as I get off the court, they lose to George Mason. That was a fun time to come in the locker room.
I think UConn is winning. That will cheer me up a little. They won, nice. I have them winning my pool. I need them to win.
No, I'm a big Carolina fan, UConn fan. At least I have one of my teams still in.
Q. How much was he in your head in the third set?
JAMES BLAKE: No, I mean, I was frustrated that I was losing, but I tried to keep a positive attitude and keep playing well. The sun was right in my eyes on that one side for serving. He kept putting pressure on me the whole time. I don't think it's extremely easy to beat me in a set 6-Love. He earned the whole thing. It's not like at 4-Love I was just, you know, tapping out and missing easy shots. I was going -- I felt like I was still going for the right shots and he just came up with the right shots.
It's one of those things where he got on a little bit of a roll. I definitely played not quite at that level, but I've played guys where you get up a little bit and then you feel like you can't miss. A couple of shots he was swinging at, you could tell, just he had that confidence where he feels like he's not going to miss. Everything was going in.
I don't know if that's in my head. It's frustrating because he was too good for a while. There are guys -- a lot of guys that can go through little runs like that, three or four games where they feel like they can't miss, you wait it out, wait it out, then you get your chance. I couldn't wait any longer.
He's one of the guys that can keep it up. He kept it up for that whole set, probably set and a half really. Actually, from early in the second set, he was playing like that. It's tough to combat that.
Q. What was going through your mind at 4-1?
JAMES BLAKE: 4-1, I was just -- I was thinking I'm playing well, see if we can keep this up. I need to make more first serves is what I was thinking. I'm giving him too many looks at second serves. I was still managing to win, but I knew that wasn't going to keep up. I know if I'm putting second serves into him all the time, he's going to be attacking me pretty soon.
I tried to do that. He played a great game at 4-1. Then I thought, okay, I was trying to keep it pretty simple, let's get a break. Let's see if I could make it easy on myself, get up 5-2, just keep worrying about that. Don't think ahead, you know, that you're already one set up or anything like that. I never did that, even serving for it at 5-4, I knew there was -- he wasn't going to just let me win that set, he was going to fight hard.
In a three-out-of-five, when you're used to playing two-out-of-threes, you got to -- my focus is always to try to make it seem like a sprint at the beginning because you still want to get out to a lead, you want to win, but you know you can't worry about any ups and downs because it is a long match, which I guess is kind of, I don't know, the best of both. That's what I try to think. Sometimes I don't.
Q. Could you talk about a couple of intangibles. You get through a tough draw, get Rafa in the semis. That had to be pretty draining. Fairly quick turnaround to get to the No. 1.
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, it's not an easy draw. It's not easy to win a Masters Series. Before this, I'd only been to the quarterfinals. Now to get to the finals, it's more proof that it's not easy.
Even though Roger and sometimes Rafael can go out and make it look easy, I promise you it's not easy. I did my best. I played great tennis throughout the week, got here. Roger played greater tennis.
I don't think it was extremely draining. You know, it's a good feeling when you're winning matches. You try not to think about if your legs are tired or arms are tired. I've been actually extremely lucky, knock on wood, that nothing was really aching or really ailing me right now.
In terms of the turnaround, it's not that big a deal. This was a little earlier of a wake-up call than I would have liked. Same for Roger. It was fine. I got plenty of sleep last night. Hopefully I get plenty of sleep tonight, too.
Q. Obviously disappointing with the result, but it's been a phenomenal week for you, hasn't it?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, it's been a great week. This one, like you said, it's disappointing, it stings right now. I think as long as I'm a competitor, as long as I'm on tour, it's always going to sting after a loss. I'm getting better and better at shortening that time span where I'm still upset about it. Hopefully in an hour or two or three, I don't know how long, but I'll just reflect on the fact that it's a good week, I moved up in the rankings or whatever, played some great tennis, had some fun out here, feel like now I can go in.
I've said it for a little while, seems like I say things and then it takes some results for people to actually believe them. I said I want to feel like I can contend for these kind of titles and stuff, even though I'd never been past the quarters. Now I feel like I've hopefully proven that I can be a contender for some of these kind of titles, at least on hard courts, and hopefully I can continue to do that.
That's something that will be a positive that I take out of this week, is that I know I can maybe one of these days get one of these Masters Series shields.
Q. Check can't hurt?
JAMES BLAKE: Can't hurt. Go and maybe splurge a little, when everybody says you deserve it. I don't know if I deserve to splurge, I just played tennis for it. The more appropriate thing is I can afford to splurge. People that work a lot harder than me are the ones that really deserve it.
Q. What would you splurge on?
JAMES BLAKE: I don't actually splurge very often. I think I do need a car. My brother is living with me in Tampa. We're both home a lot. He's not going to travel as much any more. He's going to be home a lot. I don't want him driving my car too much. We might need to get a second car for him so we have something for him to ride around in.
Q. After La Jolla, you had a tough letdown in San Jose, how can you avoid that?
JAMES BLAKE: Just learn from that mistake, where I maybe wasn't as excited about a first-round match as I should be. I didn't have the same hunger that Jimmy Wang had that week. Going into next week, I'll have a little more time now. I won't play, I don't think, until Friday in Miami. I'll have a few things to do. We got a little bit of a hectic schedule with a few media things, a few ATP meetings and stuff like that to do, that Stars' Gala on Tuesday night for the tour.
Hopefully that will put this out of my mind quickly. Along with having a short memory about the loss and about things like that, hopefully I'm also getting better at having a short memory about the wins, as well. It's good to take positives from them, but it's not good to take that into the next round and think, just because I made the finals of this week, anyone's going to bow down and give me a first-round win in Miami. There's no reason to think that. I've got to go out there and prove that I can do that again.
That's something very impressive about Roger, Rafael, the guys at the top, Andy Roddick, can win a tournament and still go in and have the same hunger, prove themselves the next week. Hopefully I can do that. That's something hopefully you need to do to stay in the top 10.
Q. After two sets, does a feeling of helplessness set in?
JAMES BLAKE: No, not at all. I definitely after the second set, I thought, okay -- it's something that I've continued to think about this whole year, before that, any time you're down, if you start winning 55% of the points, you're probably going to end up winning the match. That's all I was thinking about, was trying to win more points than he did. I didn't accomplish that, but I tried.
I never felt helpless. A couple of the points I felt helpless where he was running me six feet behind the baseline, I got to play defense. But definitely I didn't feel helpless at the beginning of the third set.
Q. When you received tremendous support, how does it make you feel?
JAMES BLAKE: It's spectacular. It's something that's incredible. When you're sitting on your couch, watching these kind of things as I was in 2004, you're watching on TV, you're watching the US Open, seeing the crowds get fired up, their reactions, their emotions. Before that I think you think about it a little bit. You're like, this is pretty cool, exciting. When you're watching it, you're removed from it, you realize how amazing of an experience that is. Most people go off to their job, come home, make dinner, wait for the weekend, those kind of things. They never had 20,000 people cheering for them, 10,000 people cheering for them. It's something they love to do.
For me to come back and have these people cheering for me, there are definitely times since I've been back that I just kind of look up, I think about it, I take a second, I'll take five extra seconds before I serve, thinking this is what I was dreaming of just a couple years ago, to come back and feel this feeling again where people are cheering for me. To hear someone after the match say you're inspirational, I'm so proud, my kids are looking up to you, something like that, it means the world to me to know that these people are getting something out of it. I'm making their day better somehow, I'm cheering them up, doing anything positive for them, just from what I went through and what I'm doing out on the tennis court, which I love to do anyway. It makes you kind of just appreciate each moment out there on the court. It's a really special feeling to do this in the United States. Hopefully I'll continue to have success here with a lot of great fans.

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