US OPEN

August 30, 2006

James Blake

THE MODERATOR: Questions for James.

Q. Must feel nice to come out with a good, solid win after bowing out last week.
JAMES BLAKE: Good feeling. The crowd is behind me. That always helps. I had some pretty bad little runs there, hiccups, whatever you want to call them. I went off my game for a few games twice.
I think at times in three out of five set matches you can fall into those lulls, let them affect you for too long. Before you know it, you're losing, the momentum has totally shifted.
With this crowd behind me, I tend to do a much better job here at the US Open of not letting that happen. Getting right back on the horse, and still playing my game.

Q. Have you put any expectations on yourself for the tournament?
JAMES BLAKE: No. Never do. I always just try to do my best. I'm still the same guy that was 210 a couple years ago. I'm still the same guy that was thrilled to win his first match ever against David Sanchez, just to be playing on that Louis Armstrong Stadium against Lleyton Hewitt. I'm still the same guy that gets goosebumps every time he walks onto Arthur Ashe.
I don't have the expectations of being the No. 1 ranked American, or 5 or 7 in the world, whatever, anything like that. I don't worry about that.
Juan Monaco is a great player. I'm happy to get through it. Just happy to be playing another day here at the Open. I don't have any kind of expectations just because Tennis Magazine picked me to win this. I don't worry too much about those kind of things (smiling).

Q. Are you aware of the Vince Spadea book where he relates an anecdote, you admonishing him at the net for him taking a bathroom break, leading to an argument? Just the fact that that is in a book, and you're both still active players, does that rub you the wrong way?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I heard something about that. If you read it, I guess you're one of the, what, 10 books that he sold or so, so far.
No, I mean, it's something that I don't understand. I would never do it. I can't speak for him. I don't understand the reasons behind doing it. I understand if you want to tell your story, tell anything that's happened in your life. I think in the future I might do something like that, talk about myself.
But I would never bring other guys into it without either their approval or just letting them know that something from the tour is going to be put in a book, 'cause we all know when there's a reporter in the locker room or when there's a reporter at dinner with us or anything like that.
It's different to do it when you're kind of doing it underhanded the way I feel like it could be done. That's unfortunate, because we really do seem to have almost like a traveling collegial relationship where we're all friends, we all get along. It's like a traveling office where kind of what happens on the road, you know, we can talk about in the locker room, we can talk about it wherever. It really doesn't have any place in a book unless you get someone's approval.
I've heard from a lot of people that a lot of people are upset, that he didn't just mention me in the book, he mentioned Andre Agassi, he mentioned my brother, he mentioned Jeff Morrison, Mardy Fish, Patrick McEnroe. I mean, I just lifted about six of the better guys I've ever known in this world, especially my brother. To hear things about them when he really doesn't know us. I mean, we all get along great. We know each other through the locker room. He's never been to my house. I've never been to his house. He's never practiced with me at Saddle Brook. He's never reached out and really gotten to know me, so it's tough to write about someone when you don't know anything about them.

Q. Is it possible that you have attained world top 10 status that was expected of him at some point in his career and he didn't quite get there? Do you think there's a strain of jealousy there?
JAMES BLAKE: I don't know. Like I said, I can speak about my own life, what's going on with me. I don't know what's going on in his head. I don't know if too many people do.
That's up to him. I hope not, because I hope he for his sake and for every player on tour's sake, I hope they all do their best and just can hang their racquets up when they're done with their career and say, I did my best, and be proud of it. I really hope that for him. I hope that for myself just as much. I really want to do that. I hope he doesn't regret never getting into the top 10 or anything like that. I wish him well on his comeback. But I feel like in writing that book, he may have made a mistake and may have kind of rubbed a few people the wrong way and not made so many friends in the locker room.

Q. The talk about American tennis lately, is it a USTA program or something that could take a top player and make him the real elite type of a player, or can a program do that? What makes that happen?
JAMES BLAKE: Well, it can help. It doesn't create talent. I mean, you don't take someone and turn them into Roger Federer. Roger Federer is someone that's a natural. He's got the work ethic. You have to have so many things that go into it. I mean, first off, you have to be an unbelievable athlete just to be out here, then you have to have the work ethic, then you have to get a little lucky to not get hurt, then you have to be able to handle all the mental stress, the pressure, the media, the kind of pulling on you in all different directions, the pressure of performing in front of crowds and expectations, everything. You've got to be able to handle all that.
I don't think there's one formula for getting there. Especially with such an individual sport. I think if I had gone to a tennis academy, been practicing six hours a day when I was 13, 14, 15 years old, I probably wouldn't be sitting here. I'd probably be burned out, not even looking at a tennis racquet, and just graduating from business school or something.
For some people, that works. For some people, if they had gone my route, they might not have had the kind of drive on their own to get up early in the morning before school and run, before school and hit. Go to a school like Harvard, and still be able to find enough time to work harder than anyone else in college, I felt like.
There's just different ways to go about it. I don't think there's one set way that's going to turn players into champions. I think it's very individual what the USTA is doing. I hope it's positive in moving to the Evert Academy, hopefully getting players to be able to train there.
It's really tough with our country being so vast. If you have the No. 1, 2 and 3 players in the country in juniors living in California, Connecticut and Texas, to get all them to practice together is not going to happen very often. You can't get them all to move and totally relocate to Florida. Whereas in France or Spain, it's a much smaller country geography wise, so they can all train in one place without being too inconvenient. We just don't have that.
We've got to find ways. I think the best way to do is keep their own coaches that got them the way they are involved. I've had Brian Barker involved with me since I was 11 years old. If the USTA could have helped and maybe just dealt with some of the financial issues when you're starting out on tour, just made sure to take me to training camps, but with Brian there, helping us with the rigors of starting out on tour, I think that would really help the young kids. You got there for a reason. You usually have someone that helped you get there. I don't think there's any magic secret to being one of these super coaches out here. If you're a good coach, you're a good coach. If you know the player, you're an even better coach. I think that's a super coach, is someone that's been with their player for long enough to know everything they're going through and to be able to tell them what's going to help them the most not necessarily what's going to help a different player, but what's going to help that player the most.
I think Brian has that. I think it would help for the USTA to get involved with the player's specific coaches.

Q. With your continued success, especially as you challenge to become the top ranked American, does that have the capacity to get more minority involvement in the sport? Does it work that way? Have you sensed that with your ongoing success? Are those two things not necessarily related?
JAMES BLAKE: I really hope they are related. I hope my success is going to spur on a few more players to pick up a racquet. I know it's helped in raising the awareness for the Harlem Junior Tennis Program. A few years ago they were trying to get rid of it and turn it into just an all purpose Boys' Club type thing with basketball and everything else, get rid of the tennis altogether. Luckily, that's been stopped. It's all tennis now still.
I saw what happened with the Williams sisters when they were dominating the sport, saw how many kids came into that armory, to the Harlem Junior Tennis Program, how many young African American girls, wanting to be like Venus and Serena.
When I was first starting out on tour, every time I'd go through a security check in or something, it's, Do you know Venus and Serena? You're a pro tennis player, do you know Venus and Serena? That was so prevalent that they were out there so often that people just wanted to be like them.
I hope I can have that kind of success and that kind of effect where people are maybe asking them if they know James Blake, if they can beat James Blake, or if they can hit a forehand like him or something. The kids see that, and they see that other people are looking up to you, and they want to get that. I think that's just natural for kids, to see a role model and want to be like them.

Q. Will the Williams leave a footprint on the sport that Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe weren't able to? If so, why? What is so different about what they did and what you're doing than the previous generations?
JAMES BLAKE: Well, I think the Williams sisters will definitely leave a footprint. I think what they did is they did it in a different era. They did it in kind of the hip hop generation where kids are looking up to the NBA players, with the baggy shorts and the tattoos, everything that goes along with the NBA that David Stern is trying to get rid of with his dress code.
It's something where it was very easy for kids to say, you know, tennis, I don't want to play tennis. I want to be like Alan Iverson, I want to be like Tracy McGrady. The Williams sisters did that and made it cool still.
I hope I can do the same. I'm not going to go out and get any tattoos or earrings or anything like that. I just want to show kids that there is a whole lot of athleticism involved in tennis and it can be a lot of fun, you're still going to get a lot of fans. I've been lucky enough to have plenty of fans. I want to show kids that there is a way to do it without being in the NBA or the NFL.
I hope I can have that kind of a lasting effect, and I think the Williams sisters really did. Their names are in rap songs. They're associated with superstar tennis players and the greatest of all times. I think they've deserved that. They've dealt with tons of pressure as they were coming up and doing that. I'm proud of them for doing that.

Q. And the climate has changed?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah. And I think it's been great.

Q. Of course Venus and Serena are extraordinary talents who went to the top quite quickly. Shenay, Angela Haynes, Jamea Jackson, with all due respect, they're having some struggles. They're not this highly ranked. Could you comment about the struggles and the difficulties that this new generation of African American women are having on the tour?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, sure. I mean, I wish I struggled like them when I was that age. I think they're doing pretty darn well. It's tough when the comparisons are Serena and Venus. They've done great things for the sport, but it's kind of like the Tiger Woods effect. When you set the bar so high, it's tough for people to jump over that.
Serena and Venus accomplished so much so young, it's tough to really match that. They're the type of players that come along once a generation. It's kind of us when I say "us" I mean myself, Andy Roddick, Mardy Fish, Robby Ginepri, trying to live up to Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, Todd Martin, Michael Chang era. It's just not easy to do.
Jamea, Shenay, Angela, all great players. I've seen them train. I've seen how hard they work, especially Angela has worked out at Saddle Brook a few times. I think they're doing great. They all seem to have real positive attitudes.
I'm happy to see them out there because I think they were partly influenced by Venus and Serena, given kind of hope by them. I'm happy to see them playing. I wish them all the success in the world. They're all still very young. I think none of them are over 21, are they? I hope they got plenty of time.
By the time I was 21, I still barely knew my way around the tour. I'm happy that they're already having some success. Jamea has had some great wins in Fed Cup. That's I think something that's pretty telling. If you can do that early on in your career, because I think that's a different kind of pressure than any other time in your career.

Q. You were close with your late father. Richard Williams has done an extraordinary job to get Venus and Serena to get them where they are. Do you think despite his extraordinary comments he is dismissed and not given the credit he deserves?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah. I think actually they've been represented by the same agent as me for a while, Carlos Fleming. He always says any time he hears a comment like that, Richard Williams is crazy. Says, Yeah, crazy like a fox. He definitely knows what he's doing. Some of his outrageous comments seem crazy. But then a couple years later, they end up being true. When he said Serena and Venus are going to be fighting it out for No. 1 in the world, when they were still 20 and 30 in the world or something. Two years later, you look up, and there they are. He's right.
I think in that extraordinary comments, he also just has a ton of confidence in his daughters. That's something that's natural. My dad wasn't nearly as high profile or anything like that, but if you ask him in our own household, Who is going to be No. 1 in the world in a couple of years, he's going to say me. That's what a father is supposed to do.
I early on kind of broke from my dad in terms of tennis because he was so involved in my tennis, so loving and caring, but it's tough to take those lessons from your dad. You want to have a coach, and you want to learn other things from your dad. You want to learn about whatever it is, whether it's going through troubles in high school, whether it's your math test, anything like that, you learn those things from your dad.
I had Brian Barker there luckily pretty early to kind of separate the two. It was tough for my dad for a little while. But once he did, all he had input in was how hard I was working. He just finished practicing, I'd come home, he'd say, All right, now you're going to go out for a run, right? Just keep me working harder. Knowing that he wanted me to work harder than all the others.
I think that's what Richard does. I don't know. I haven't been around them when I've seen him coaching them. I don't know exactly how much he's helping them with forehand, backhand, footwork. He has a ton of confidence. He shows how much he cares. Right there, that's a good coach, someone that's in your corner that cares about you. He's done great things and he's had two phenomenal Grand Slam champions as daughters. So he's doing something right.

Q. The connection between Arthur Ashe and the current players, in the sense that the parents of these current black players were contemporaries of Arthur Ashe. Although they couldn't have pro careers, they got their kids involved in tennis.
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I definitely think that's a direct link because my dad wouldn't have been involved in tennis if it wasn't for Arthur Ashe. I probably wouldn't be sitting here if it wasn't for Arthur.
I think I would assume some of them, the same thing, that you see someone like Arthur Ashe, he's such a great role model. If it's too late for you, you're in your 30s or something, you're not going to make it as a pro tennis player or anything, you maybe want that for your kids. I hope there are kids watching now or parents who are watching that say, I want my kids to be like Venus or Serena. Maybe there's a parent out there saying I want my kid to be like James Blake, put a racquet in that boy or girl's hand. Before you know it, in 10, 15 years there will be a kid sitting here saying that same thing. That would be an extremely proud moment for me and it would be something that really validates the hard work that I've done to get here, much more so than any title, financial gain that I get from it, to know that there are kids that have gotten something positive out of their life that might not have had it otherwise.

Q. You touched on succeeding what is the greatest tennis generation any country has ever produced. Do you and Andy and Mardy talk about what that responsibility means?
JAMES BLAKE: We kind of joke about it. It's our responsibility, but it's also you recognize I think the tennis public in America for the last 20 years have been kind of spoiled with that generation.
So we joke about it, but we know we're all doing our best. We push each other. Andy had his success right away. We all saw it. He was kind of carrying the burden on his own. We all wanted to help him. But just different injuries. Mardy has had two wrist surgeries. I was injured for all of 2004. Robby struggled for a little while.
We all want to help, want to be a part of that. Now I'm really helping, and Mardy has started playing really well again, even after his injury. Robby I think has turned his game back around again, is going to be back to the top 20 in no time.
I think we all understand the responsibility. We all want to do it together. I don't know if that generation before us did the same thing. I've heard stories that they pushed each other, but it was more on a, I want to be better than that guy pushing each other. We're doing it more of a, Let's get this Davis Cup home for us together. Let's go out and work out together. Let's all train at one place for a little while, for a week, and hang out and play cards together and figure out what makes Andy great, and maybe I can incorporate that into my game. What makes me play so well, Mardy can incorporate that into his game. I get the same from all of them.
It's something that we're all trying to do it together. We're proud to be doing our best. We got two guys in the top 10 right now which not too many countries have. I think Mardy will be up there pretty soon. Robby is up there still. Hopefully, we'll continue to be playing great. We're going to hopefully do it together and bring home a Davis Cup title. We're definitely proud and pushing each other.
When any one of us succeeds, we're happy. I'm sure two of the first calls Andy got after he won Cincinnati were me and Mardy. I'm sure Robby wasn't too far behind. We're all proud when someone does something else.

Q. In a way, do you think the fab four generation were in their own way an advancement on the generation before with Connors and McEnroe with an active hostility against each other?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, which is strange to me. Since I started on tour, maybe it was because all those guys had so much success so quickly. Right away, they're playing for Grand Slam championships as opposed to us. We all got to know each other in places like Tulsa, Oklahoma, Waco, Texas, playing futures and challengers and stuff like that together. There aren't tons of media. There aren't tons of hot spots to go out at night. You're all hitting the Outback at 8:00 to go to dinner. You just do that together. There aren't tons of things to do. You end up playing cards together. You end up just watching a movie together. As you do that, you create a friendship, a bond. That doesn't change I don't think when you have that bond. Once you have that, that doesn't change once the money and the fame and all that comes into it.
But if you start out without that bond, which I don't know, maybe those guys did, I can see it being different. With us, we started out at those challengers and future levels together. We just got to know each other so well, that there's nothing that's going to break us apart. Like I said, we're proud of each other. I'm really proud that I'm going to have those friends for the rest of my life.

Q. Can we now add the topspin lob to your arsenal of weapons?
JAMES BLAKE: I hope so. I think I still have to rely on just the ripping the forehand cross court more often.

Q. When did you decide to hit that ball in the tiebreaker?
JAMES BLAKE: As soon as I saw him coming in. I knew he was going to be on top of the net.

Q. Last successful topspin lob?
JAMES BLAKE: I have no idea. I don't remember.

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