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WESTERN & SOUTHERN FINANCIAL GROUP MASTERS

August 16, 2006

James Blake

CINCINNATI, OHIO

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please, for James Blake.

Q. James, obviously he's a former US Open finalist, 30 in the world, guy who can get it done on hard courts. What was it out there today? How did you feel about your game?
JAMES BLAKE: Uh, not great. Pretty disappointing. I feel like the two most important parts of the game, serve and return, were what let me down most today. I didn't serve well, I didn't return well. He put a lot of first serves in, but I didn't do a good enough job of making him play on those. He's dangerous when I do make him play, but I got to make him beat me instead of giving him freebies. That's pretty frustrating.

Q. The way things have gone the last few tournaments for you, at what point does this become a slump?
JAMES BLAKE: Not after a few weeks, that's for sure. I played great in Indy, played all right in DC, didn't play too badly in Toronto, didn't play great here, but I've also beaten Santoro and I beat Kevin Kim in DC, played all right in those. Feel okay in practice. I just had another bad day. It was one of those days where when I guessed, it seemed like I guessed wrong. When he would guess, seemed like he would guess right.
Glad I'm playing the Pilot Pen next week. Hopefully I can get my confidence up for the US Open. But I definitely don't consider it a slump to lose to Juan Carlos Ferrero and Richard Gasquet and Marat Safin. Two of them have been No. 1 in the world and Gasquet made the finals last week. So I'm not gonna say I'm the worst player in the world or the world's gonna end because I lost to three pretty darn good players.

Q. Was there anything you could have done differently today?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I think I could have served better and I think I could have returned better. I think maybe I double-faulted a few times on key points. Two of the breaks were mainly due to double-faults. A double-fault on breakpoint and I double-faulted twice in the first game, I got broken in the first set. That's inexcusable.
But, otherwise, I would have liked to have taken my chances on really getting in the points and playing with him as opposed to a lot more of it being dictated by serve and return.

Q. Did you feel like you couldn't hit a return in today, especially on the backhand side?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I definitely didn't feel like I was returning well. He put his serves in the right spots, mixed it up well. But still just feel like I could have returned better.

Q. Have you had enough tennis going into the US Open?
JAMES BLAKE: Hopefully not yet. Hopefully I'll do well at the Pilot Pen like last year and go in with that kind of confidence.
But I definitely played plenty in Indianapolis, and I played some pretty -- longer match in DC with Safin. So I definitely don't feel like I'm going to forget how to play tennis between now and the US Open. I still feel like I've got a good chance there and I feel like I'm more hopeful that my best tennis is yet to come this summer.

Q. Are you disappointed with how you played today? What are your kind of emotions and feelings?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I'm disappointed in the way I played today. I didn't return well. I didn't serve well. I wish I could have done better. Any amount of crying or wingeing about it now isn't going to get me back out on the court now. The only thing I can do is go home, go back to Connecticut and practice, hit a bunch more serves, hit a bunch more returns, and then take this frustration out on whoever I play first round next week at the Pilot Pen - hopefully.

Q. You've done a lot of off the court things associated with being the No. 1 American. Is that taxing at all?
JAMES BLAKE: No, I make sure it's pretty much on my schedule. All the interviews I do by e-mail so I know I can do it whenever I feel like it. Anything I've done in association with the tournaments has been kind of my own will. Going to the children's hospital yesterday, that was something I was happy to do and it doesn't take anything away from my tennis. In fact, I think it can only help because it helps me with the ongoing effort of keeping things in perspective. Like coming in here, being as disappointed and frustrated as I am right now, I know there's a ton of kids I saw yesterday that would be pretty thrilled to have a day like I've had today. So I definitely think those kind of things help.
All the other stuff, I'm definitely not concerned about. I'm much more equipped to handle it now than I was when I was 21, 22 years old. I'm not letting it affect anything on the court. I'm not gonna blame that for losing today.

Q. Despite what happened today, most guys that reach your age are either leveling off or moving down the rankings. You're going the other way. How do you account for that?
JAMES BLAKE: I feel like - I've explained to a few people - I feel like I'm still young in tennis years. I didn't start until later. I went through two years in college, I didn't sink my teeth into the tour until I was 21 or 22 years old when I started playing at these events, and then I had a whole year taken away from me basically in 2004. I still feel like I'm at the process where I'm on the up slope of learning and going, hopefully moving forward and keep on improving.
But I don't know. I hope it continues. I don't know what's gonna happen. Obviously at some point everyone plateaus and starts going down. But I hope I have a few more years until I hit that plateau. If I've hit it or whenever I do hit it, I hope I enjoy the ride down. I hope I continue enjoying tennis like I do now. I hope I continue finding new challenges the way guys like Andre Agassi have when obviously he hasn't been -- he isn't quite the same player he was when he was No. 1 in the world, but he still finds ways to win matches, he still has unbelievable talent and still gives a lot back to the game. So I hope I can still do that kind of stuff whenever I do plateau. But I definitely don't think I've hit that yet.

Q. Did you think it was good for you to play two years of college and live a normal life? What was that like?
JAMES BLAKE: Definitely I think it was good for me to go to college. I went to college with really ambitions of going to business school and maybe trying the tour for a couple of years. I didn't realize how much better I was gonna get. But I kept working hard, and this became a reality.
But it definitely helped me as what I feel is like a stepping stone where I left my parent's house and I was somewhat structured in an environment with having to deal with practice, being at practice on time, making my own schedule, classes, also trying to fit in a social life. So, uhm, I think that was great for preparing me for the tour when I'm totally out on my own just with my coach. But it's different when your coach is employed by you, you're kind of the boss of your own schedule, of everything that you're going to do. And it gave me a great balance, I think, and that kind of good segue from being a kid under your parents' rule, living in your parents' house, to being on your own, in an attempt to be an adult - which I'm still not sure I hit that plateau yet, I'm working on stopping watching cartoons and things like that.
But we'll see.

Q. What's your biggest motivation on the court right now?
JAMES BLAKE: Uhm, just same thing I've always had, is to keep getting better. I mean, once I go out for a match, the goal is always to get better, but sometimes that gets lost in my head with just an effort to win the match. And I know what I need to do to get better, and that's -- if I'm playing well, I'm generally pretty focused, and the two kind of mesh with trying to get better and win the match. And sometimes when I feel like I need to go to my Plan B or something else that might not help me get better but is hopefully going to help me win the match, then sometimes I'm in trouble out there.
I feel like my motivation is to continue improving. Like I said, I don't think I've hit a plateau yet, so I want to reach that pinnacle of my talent, and I don't think I've hit it yet. So that's pretty easy motivation, is to keep getting better that way.

Q. When you kind of signed on to be a pro tennis player and really decided to dedicate all your time to it, did you think that the modeling and other things would come along with it, and kind of what do you think about that, when you see yourself in different men's magazines?
JAMES BLAKE: No, no, no. I was very naive and green when I started. I had no idea when I signed with an agency, I signed with IMG. They weren't allowed to talk numbers when I was still in college. So when I came out and was gonna sign my first deal, I didn't know if it was gonna be for free clothes and ten dollars or a million dollars a year. I had no idea really what to expect. I was just at that point worried about improving in tennis. I'm glad I've kept that same goal, and I haven't let those things factor in too much. I was very, very lucky to have a guy like Mats Wilander when I was growing up who when I was about 15, 16, 17, he was practicing with me. He always told me that there are a few things you worry about: you worry about on the court, you worry about getting better, you worry about playing the game for all the right reasons, and all that other stuff will come. The racquet deals, the shoe deals, the money, all that stuff's gonna come if you just focus on the right things and you let other people worry about that. I let my agent worry about that kind of stuff.
Modeling thing hasn't taken any time away. Actually probably lucky that Nike is pretty restrictive. They don't let me do a lot of things in terms of modeling. Keeps my time free. I've been able to use that time to practice and work hard, and hopefully then all these other things that come with it are just by-products of being good at tennis.

Q. Much has been said and written about the state of men's tennis in America. What state do you think it's in and how much pressure is there on the likes of you and Andy to carry on without Andre?
JAMES BLAKE: I think it's in great shape. I think Andy has done an unbelievable job of carrying the load for himself by a while. I'm here to hopefully help him a little bit. We're in the semifinals of Davis Cup. We're one of the few countries with two guys in the Top 15 probably. Uhm, I think Andy is on his way back confidence-wise. I still feel like I'm getting better and learning every day about all this newfound press, newfound fame with being top 10 in the world and being No. 1 American. I'm learning from Andy at some points and learning from Andre. I feel like I'm getting better and better at dealing with that, and dealing with the players that are out to take that away from me.
So I think we're doing fine. If we can win the Davis Cup, maybe that will quiet some of the critics. But it's gonna be tough playing next one on clay, and probably if the -- if we make it through that, the next one on clay. But we definitely feel like we're doing our part and we've got the No. 1 doubles team in the world, so I think American tennis is doing pretty good. It's not at the level of Sampras, Agassi, Chang, Courier, Martin, Washington, but I don't know if any generation will ever be like that again whether it's this country, Spain, Argentina, Australia. That's tough to match.

Q. When you were on the rise last year in the rankings, you talked then about being in the "zone." How mercurial is being in the zone and out of the zone? Is there any sense you get when it's starting to be on the outside?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, it tends to sometimes happen on just little things, you know, me double-faulting on a breakpoint. That generally doesn't happen when I'm playing my best tennis. Just little things that happen on big points where you tend to get the breaks and things start going your way.
But, uhm, you never -- you try to never think about it too much, getting inside your own mind, and you end up causing yourself more harm than good. So I'm not gonna worry about that. I'm gonna hope that I'm back to getting all the breaks and feeling confident next week at the Pilot Pen, and I think if I win a match or two there and things are going my way and I know I feel like I can play well on those courts - they're gonna be the same as the US Open - there's no reason why I can't start getting all the breaks at the US Open especially when I know I'm going to go there, have the home crowd, have the same feelings I had last year and every year I play there where it feels like I'm at home. It just seems to bring out my best tennis there.

End of FastScripts...

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