	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

WIMBLEDON

June 28, 2007

James Blake

LONDON, ENGLAND

THE MODERATOR: Who is first?

Q. Pretty much took care of business, everything pretty solid out there?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I felt really good. I know Andrei got excellent returns. To get through a match three sets with him only getting broken once is a great feeling for my serve. Served well the first match, too. I'm pretty excited about that.
Same as in the first match. Holding serve like that gave me the freedom to go for my shots on his serve. That's why I broke him five times: going after those shots, playing aggressive, not feeling the pressure to need every break, to be able to take your chances and they're hopefully going to go in.

Q. As you're progressing towards unaccustomed territory for you at Wimbledon, what is foremost in your mind?
JAMES BLAKE: My next match. That's the first thing I thought of once I get over the little euphoric time of a half hour to an hour after you win a match. You're pretty excited. Then back to business, back to what you need to do to win the next day.
You get stretched, relaxed, get yourself a good meal, make sure you're just doing everything you can to prepare for tomorrow. For me that's making sure I'm in bed early tonight, getting a good dinner, being mentally just as prepared tomorrow as I was today.

Q. What is the biggest difference for you this year as opposed to when you've struggled here?
JAMES BLAKE: Well, for one, I think I'm a better player. Each time I come here, I think I'm a better player than I was before. Other times I don't think earlier in my career I really had any sense of how to play on grass. I feel like I've learned that over the last few years.
I tried to adjust too much, maybe just from the years as a kid watching the Boris Beckers, Pete Samprases, Stefan Edbergs play here, thinking I had to chip and charge on everything, serve and volley on first and second serves. That's not really my game.
Maybe it's the balls have slowed down, the court have slowed down. I don't know. I think it has a lot more to do with the racquets and the strings and how people are able to play.
It's becoming much more from the baseline, a little bit similar to a hard court, because there aren't that many bad bounces. From what I hear in the old days, there were a lot of bad bounces. Now you get a lot of true bounces. You step up, rip your shots, go after it just like hard courts.
I think now I have that kind of confidence that that's my game. Once I have a clear picture of what my game plan is supposed to be, I think I generally play a whole lot better instead of wondering or trying to experiment with too many things.

Q. The first time you stepped out here on grass, were you worried about playing?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, probably. Especially when I first started, first time I played here was 2000 or 2001. For one, being excited to be here. To be at Wimbledon, to make sure I could sneak one of those towel into my bag so I have one of those as a keepsake. You know, just little things like that. I was definitely in awe the first time I came here.
In terms of the grass, yeah, I grew up in America. The grass courts in America are so much softer. You don't feel like you can play any sort of points. You really are attacking and coming in. The ball bounces so low at tournaments like Newport.
Here to have the ability to play these kind of points, it took me a while, but now I'm figuring out hopefully how to play effectively on it.

Q. The other day Patrick McEnroe characterized you as a confidence player. I guess he was saying for you to reach your potential, you have to get a few wins under your belt, then look out. Would you agree with that? If so, what has winning these first two rounds fairly straightforwardly done for you?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I think I'm a confidence player. I think a lot of guys are. It's one of the most important things to have in your game, is when you're playing confidently. That's something that, again, as a young player, I wasn't consistent with. I would lose a match, lose confidence immediately. That could spiral in three, four, five losses in a row.
Now I don't let that happen. I don't let the dips in confidence happen. I definitely still try to take some sort of effect in a positive way from wins.
So wins like I've had the last two days that have been straight sets against two, in my opinion, very good players is a good feeling and should take me to the next round with a lot of confidence.
I hope Patrick's right, that everyone needs to watch out when I do get some confidence. That's the way I always feel. This surface isn't exactly my most comfortable like I am on hard courts, but it's still I think pretty comfortable and definitely more comfortable than the red clay. I'm excited about that.
Like I said, yeah, I am confident. Winning these first two matches is a big boost 'cause I have had a time where I've been a little up and down. I think part of that is the clay. Part of it's been some bad luck. Now I'm ready to hopefully gain even more confidence.

Q. Can you say anything about the process by which you learn not to let your confidence dip with each loss? Was that through conversation with a coach or...
JAMES BLAKE: I wish I could say it was one day it just clicked or something, but it's a process. Brian and I talk about some of the things that have happened over my career, similar to like an ant farm. If you watch an ant farm, it's not something that happens in a day. You watch it after months and months and you see they've made this whole colony.
Things take a long time to progress. You can't see them pick out every single piece of sand. It's just something that every single match you work on getting better.
That's been Brian and I's theme since day one, since my career started, is just getting better. I feel like I've gotten so much better after that. There were times when I was pretty awful at it, when I was just coming out of college and losing a whole lot 'cause I just wasn't ready for this level of tennis. It affected me. It affected me way too much.
It wasn't one specific time, one match where I said, Okay, I've lost a couple in a row, but I'm still going to stay confident. It was doing that time after time after time again, getting a little bit better.
Everyone I feel like has a breaking point. Some guys are tougher than others. It seems like Nadal can never break or Roger can never break. But I think their breaking point is so much further than a lot of other guys' that we've never seen it.
In my early days, it was pretty quick. One bad call goes against me, I'm upset, hang my head. Now I don't feel like it's that. I hope I'm at the point where you won't ever see that breaking point any more. You won't see me hanging my head, getting down on myself or being too negative on the court or anything like that. But it's something that has taken years.
I can't say there was one specific match where it turned around.

Q. You have an interesting situation where you're obviously half American yet of English origin as well. Two very close yet different cultures. Can you talk about that quality.
JAMES BLAKE: I'm appreciative of all my heritage, proud of my father's family, proud of my mother's family. I'm happy people have heard about it over here, so I have a few fans, it's great.
But since I was born in America and grew up there, was developed partly by the USTA, I just felt so patriotic to them, that's where I grew up and that's where I learned the great sport of tennis.
But over here, it is an unbelievable feeling to see my mom over here, how much she appreciates it, how her accent comes back, how she remembers times from when she was young. I've been to see Banbury where she grew up, her old house and everything like that. It's exciting.
It just makes all the stories she tells and everything about her become much more real, as opposed to whatever picture you have in your head, it's never the same as when you get to see it. I really do cherish that. It makes this tournament a close second in terms of my favorite tournaments in the world.
It's a wonderful feeling. I love being here. I like the fact that I do have a bit of a kinship with the country. It seems like I guess I'm the closest thing to a Brit left in this tournament, so hopefully I'll have a few fans (smiling).

Q. In a word, your favorite part of British culture?
JAMES BLAKE: I love the tradition. There are so many things my mom will say that it's just been this way forever, we've done it this way. I like that. I think it's great that people just understand that.

Q. On the men's tour fashion seems to be coming more and more prevalent. It's not just the women that everyone talk about now. You've done modeling bits. Can you explain that a bit more. Also why do you think there's a growing trend of men wanting to look good on the court?
JAMES BLAKE: Maybe the girls were looking so good we wanted to impress them, catch their eye a little bit.
I think some of the guys coming up are really interested in fashion. You mentioned the modeling thing, but I can't say I do a whole lot to prepare for that. I shave my head. I don't shave my face that often. I can't say I'm one of those guys that's always in a mirror.
I don't know exactly what to do. I wear what Nike tells me to wear. The only times I've had input are when I did the Agassi tribute, and a few times I've gotten yelled at for mismatching my outfits.
I like fashion off the court. On the court it's mostly for me about actual comfort basically. It's just how good it feels so you don't have to think about anything on the court. But off the court, my mom definitely makes fun of me for being someone that likes fashion. But I think she was spoiled with my brother. I don't think he's ever had anything but a T-shirt and jeans or sweatshirt and jeans.
She got used to that. For me to go out and buy a few nice outfits, a suit, a blazer, anything like that, she thinks I'm crazy. I definitely like it off the court.

Q. One follow-up on the fashion. On the all-white outfit tradition, what do you make of it?
JAMES BLAKE: I love a tradition. I love it here at Wimbledon. I still always wear the sleeves here. I'm sleeveless every else but here.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297