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THE STELLA ARTOIS CHAMPIONSHIPS

June 18, 2006

James Blake

LONDON, ENGLAND

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. What were your thoughts on how that went today?
JAMES BLAKE: Obviously, not as excited about yesterday -- about today as it was -- as good as it was yesterday.
Today Lleyton played that well. He served great. Didn't give me any freebies really. And I think to beat him you really got to control the points, and I wasn't able to do that because he was getting on the offensive before I was. So difficult.
My serve wasn't quite as good as it was yesterday. I wasn't able to attack him, so he did what he does best.

Q. James, were you suffering any sort of a letdown after yesterday's result?
JAMES BLAKE: I try not to think so. But maybe, you know, came out flat in that first game. If anything, I hope it only affected maybe the first game. But I really felt like I was ready. I don't feel like I have any problems getting up for a final, and getting excited to play a guy like Lleyton on grass. I really didn't think I had any problems with it.
But that first game, I felt like he played well, so I can't really blame too much of a letdown or anything else. I think he just played too good.

Q. Getting broken in the second set, started with the overrule.
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah.

Q. Did that play on your mind at all?
JAMES BLAKE: No, no. I tried to put that out of my mind as quickly as possible and still came back and played a competitive game and had a chance. I think I missed a relatively routine forehand to end that game, which was pretty frustrating.
But that's, unfortunately, sometimes what he makes you do. If you get into long rallies and he's just not missing anything, sometimes you feel pressured like you have to go for something, go for a little too much, and maybe I did that. Didn't work too well today.

Q. You've had some relatively mixed grass court performances and results over the last few years. Do you feel like you're really making headway on it now? Do you feel you could be a genuine contender at Wimbledon?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I hope so. I definitely feel like I've started playing better, and this week is a huge boost. The only other time I did well was at Newport and that grass is very different. It's really soft. You kind of have to serve and volley all the time. I just happened to be returning well that week and got into the finals.
But over here, playing on these courts where it's a little harder and you can actually get into points and play real grass court tennis, I feel like I'm moving a little better and I'm just understanding how to play on grass a little better.

Q. Talking about the understanding involved, yesterday you were saying you have to learn to be aggressive.
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I think you definitely have to be aggressive on grass. There are only a few guys, like Lleyton, who are able to counterpunch as well as he does. But with that being said, he still played offense quite a bit today, which he doesn't do as much on hard courts or on the clay. He's able to do that more effectively on grass because his ball penetrates more, his serve penetrates more, and it's just a much more effective shot when he's not really going for winners, but they just turn into winners.

Q. Who's the man to stop Roger Federer at Wimbledon this year?
JAMES BLAKE: Uhm, there's only 127 guys to choose from, and I can't think of one. You know, I'd like to say me. Lleyton's got a good chance. Andy's got a good chance. He's played him really close the last couple years. But how many has he won in a row now, 40? It's incredible, what he's doing. I mean, maybe Roger Federer is the only guy to stop him, I think. Because if he's playing well, I don't see any one of us stopping him. He needs to have a bad day, I think.
He's played a ton of tennis lately. That's maybe in the back of all of our minds, that he made it all the way through to the French Open final which he's never done before, then going straight to Halle and winning there, which he does every year. But just a lot of tennis.
So hopefully one of those matches he'll just, you know, kind of mentally not be totally there or just physically be a little worn down - something - and we could kind of take a shot at him.
But all that being said, Olivier Rochus had four matchpoints on him, so I guess he's human. We'll find out at Wimbledon. It's going to be exciting to see. We haven't had, since Sampras, a guy like this that's that big of a favorite I don't think at Wimbledon. It will be fun to see if he can continue his dominance like Pete did.

Q. Is it quite despairing he doesn't seem to have these lapses?
JAMES BLAKE: It's quite impressive. Everyone -- I think a lot of guys that are in the top 10 or top 20 have gone through phases where they've played some of their best tennis for a week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, but then there's just one point where you kind of let down a little bit, and he never has that. It's amazing. It seems so easy to him and a lot of people will look at that and say, "Well, he's just more talented, or "He's just that good," or, "It's easy." I think people need to give him even more credit. It is not easy to do that. Now, knowing what it takes to get to the top 10, knowing what it takes to play at this level for more than just two or three months at a time, for him to be doing this for two and three years already and no sense of it stopping is just incredibly impressive to me.
I think he's gotten plenty of credit, but he deserves plenty more because it's not easy to do.

Q. Going into Wimbledon as a top 10 player, good grass court performances this week, what's success and what's failure at Wimbledon for you?
JAMES BLAKE: Success is just play my best tennis. I mean, I could easily come up against Ivo Karlovic first round and he could just serve me off the court. I could come up against Andre in the third round because he's not going to be one of the top 20 seeds, I don't think. So, you know, you can come up against a guy that's just playing great tennis on the grass. I don't feel like -- I don't want to say if I don't get to the quarterfinals it's a failure, and I don't want to say if I get past the second round it's a success or anything. I just want to play my best tennis and see where it takes me.
Last year I didn't think I played well but I didn't think I played terrible, and Jan Hernych played a good match, served about 80%, and especially well on the breakpoints.
I don't consider one tournament a success or failure based on any round or anything like that. I just want to keep getting better on grass, and I think I've already achieved that this week, so I'm looking forward to playing this well and maybe even better at Wimbledon.

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