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WIMBLEDON

June 29, 2007

James Blake

LONDON, ENGLAND

Q. So? What would you say happened?
JAMES BLAKE: I lost. Juan Carlos played great for the second and third sets, like he was confident, like he was playing when he was No. 1 in the world, I think. He served unbelievable and was taking advantage of every chance he got, and my serve went away a little bit and he took advantage of every chance.
Then fourth set I thought was real high level tennis. We both were ripping, playing our games to what I thought was a pretty high level, and I missed a couple of backhands. The one game I thought I had a look at, I missed a couple second set returns, a deuce, and had what I thought was a good chance on a forehand, short forehand at 15-30, and that was a big difference.
After that he played great. The tiebreaker I missed one easy volley, but otherwise I felt like he played well on the points that he won.

Q. Obviously it was a tough third-round match. What was your expectation going in from him? Did you have a sense of where he was with his game?
JAMES BLAKE: Well, I know, similar going to just about every player out here on tour they're very dangerous. Him probably more so than most because he's been No. 1 in the world so he's not scared to play anyone.
And in a sense he didn't have the same sort of pressure back this time as he did back when he was Top 10 in the world, No. 1 in the world. He's playing a guy that's ranked higher than him, and he's on what most people consider his least favorite surface. So he was able to swing freely and he did that, and that's -- he showed why he was so highly ranked before and why he is so dangerous, because he played so well for three sets today.

Q. You're giving him a lot of credit, and obviously that's admirable. But I mean, you could have played better, couldn't you have? When you look at the stats, I guess, in double faults, 29 unforced errors, 39 percent conversion on your first serve in the third set. I mean, there are -- there was room for improvement?
JAMES BLAKE: Are you asking me if after I lost I could have played better? Yes. That's usually the case. I don't think I've ever come off a court with a loss saying I played the best match of my life. So yes, there's room for improvement. There always is when I lose.
But a lot of it has to do with how well the other guy is playing. Some of it has to do with me just making mistakes, me not being perfect. I don't think even in a win I'm going to come off and say I played perfect. So there's always room for improvement.

Q. You had talked yesterday just about how good you were feeling. Obviously all the confidence you felt and everything, how much does this particular loss hurt?
JAMES BLAKE: It hurts right now. Obviously it's only half an hour after the match, so it definitely still stings. But the only thing I'll think about hopefully come tomorrow when I get home is hopefully getting back on the hard courts where I feel most comfortable. I feel like I'm getting better on grass courts, and next year I'll have hopefully better results. But ready for the hard courts and back being in the States where I tend to have my best results of the year. Hopefully I'll do that again.
But either way, I'm going to go back there with confidence. I felt like I played well at times today, and I felt like when I was attacking and kind of imposing on him, I was being very effective. That's what I need to do on the hard courts. So hopefully in a couple days I'll feel pretty good. Right now for the next few hours, I'll probably beat myself up a little bit, as I always do, but after that, I'll get right back to being positive and thinking about doing great things this summer.

Q. You're rolling along after the first set, you win it. It looks like, here you go. And then all of a sudden -- did he just pick his game up, or did yours stagnate a little bit?
JAMES BLAKE: He went through about -- from early to mid-second set until the end of the third set, I would guess he served over 80 percent first serves, and I doubt he had more than eight unforced errors, and if he did, the ones that he did were at Love-40 or 40-Love or points that seemed to be not as important.
I felt like he played unbelievable. It's tough to play against someone like that, but I tried to keep my head. I thought I did a good job of that in the fourth set of really just focusing on my serve and making sure to take care of that. I thought I did a good job, and then taking my chances in the tiebreaker, I did that and came up short.
But I think he raised his game unbelievably in the second and third sets. But I know he's capable of doing that. Going into the match, I knew that. The guy has won a Grand Slam before. He's been in the finals of other Grand Slams. He's capable of playing with anyone in the world. I think he raised his game and I tried to weather the storm, but he kept pushing.

Q. What's your typical thing to do after a disappointing loss like this? Specifically, do you ever go back and look at -- will you look at the tape of this match or will Brian or will you guys break it down, or are you just thinking onward, there's nothing to learn?
JAMES BLAKE: I'm sure Brian will look at it. I don't want to see this one for a while. What Brian usually does is he'll look at a lot of tapes and he'll show me what I need to see. I'm not going to sit through a two-and-a-half-hour match and watch the whole thing. He'll show me kind of the tendencies or what was working, what wasn't working. So he'll look at that, but I'm not -- I won't.
My tendencies are just to get a pretty quiet dinner with my family and then get on a flight and go home and probably not watch too much tennis except maybe when Andy is on the next few days.

Q. Do you fly back in the morning?
JAMES BLAKE: I'll try to. I don't have a flight planned yet, but hopefully the flights will be empty and I can get on one tomorrow.

Q. It seems like after yesterday's match you were starting to build a little bit of confidence. At certain points in the match it didn't seem like you were maybe able to go for the shot you wanted to or lift your game. Is it fair to say that the confidence is still a little bit eluding you at times in the important moments?
JAMES BLAKE: I felt pretty confident today. But he clearly felt better. I mean, like I said, the second and third sets he played unbelievable. I think my serve was a little sub-par at that point, but it could have been thanks to the fact that every time I gave him a second serve he was taking rips and even first serves he was ripping them. He went after those and was putting it on me. I felt like -- I realized the situation, that I wasn't getting in the net as much as I was in the first set, and I consciously made an effort to try to do something about it, but there were times when I couldn't. I was just pushing and he was coming up with shots that were too deep, and his defense was great, and then when he got on offense he was taking advantage. So he wasn't giving me any chances.
I don't feel like my confidence should be faltering too much. Obviously right now right after the match I'm disappointed and I think about things I could have done. Obviously I could have made that volley at 5-4 in the breaker, I could have put the second serve returns in, whatever it was, 3, 4 Deuce or whatever the scoring was. But outside of a couple of things that I need to have a short memory about, I don't think I played that badly. He played exceptional tennis.

Q. When is your next start?
JAMES BLAKE: LA.

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