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ROGERS MASTERSAugust 7, 2007James BlakeMONTREAL, QUEBEC THE MODERATOR: Questions, please, for James Blake. Q. You got a pretty tough first-round match, and then now you get the privilege of playing Lleyton Hewitt in the second round. How tough is this draw? JAMES BLAKE: It's what you'd expect from a Masters Series these days. It's very deep. No really easy matches. I haven't seen too many matches where you look through, you see the score, you see a sure win for anyone. You don't see too many 2-2 matches, 3-3 matches here. It's a great testament to the depth of men's tennis, how good these guys really are. Q. Sort of midway through the US Open Series, assess your level, how you think things are going? JAMES BLAKE: I think things are going great. Finals and a quarters. I had a good week off of training. Now I feel good here. Everything's going well. I didn't take advantage of a couple chances against Stepanek in the finals of L.A., but then Sam Querrey in the quarters served unbelievable. Wasn't a whole lot I could do. A matter of just playing two out of three tiebreakers. He came up big in the third-set tiebreaker. I can't really beat myself up too much when I didn't get broken for 18 straight games and still lose the match. You know, feeling pretty good. Like I said, a great week of training. Q. Do you feel like you're playing better than during the grass season? JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I think I'm playing better. Definitely more comfortable on the hard courts. I think grass, you know, I have the ability to do well on it, but I still don't know if I feel quite as confident as I do when I get back onto the hard courts feeling the way I do now. Q. Lleyton mentioned here in Montréal, it's one of the faster hard courts on the circuit. Do you have that same feeling? JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, definitely. As soon as I got here, I noticed it seemed like when you're practicing, the ball skips through a lot more. I guess you consider that a little bit more like grass. But still I feel like the footing is great. It's definitely one of the quickest, though. It's good. I actually like the fact that there is some variety 'cause for a while people have been complaining about the hard courts being too slow, they're all the same, they're all very gritty, the ball bounces high. To throw in one where it's a little quicker maybe rewards a little bit more aggressive play. It's good to have this variation and see how guys adjust to it. Q. You've risen as high as 4. You're top 10 now. How hard is it to stay up in that top three or four the way men's tennis goes? JAMES BLAKE: It's pretty tough. These guys are very good. Everyone's trying to get there. That's everyone's goal, everyone's dream, to get up to top four or five in the world, to be the one on the magazine covers, that's always talked about, one of the top seeds. But they don't realize that with that comes a bullseye on your back with everyone else shooting for you. It's tough to stay there. It's hard to get there, but I think it's even harder to stay there. You have all the pressure on you as opposed to other people that are gunning for you. They don't have the pressure. When someone is playing Djokovic now or Andy now, they don't have the pressure because by most people's regards you're expected to lose. So you come out with being able to be a bit more free-swinging. That ends up being usually a better strategy. Q. Djokovic has risen quickly up to as high as 3. What do you think of his game and him as a guy? JAMES BLAKE: His game is incredible. He's an exceptional player. He's another one of those guys that doesn't seem to have a weakness. He serves really well, moves very well, plays defense. When he gets on offense he can attack and even volley pretty well, too. He doesn't have many weaknesses. Doesn't seem like any one surface will hinder him too much. It's not like he's going to struggle on clay, struggle on grass. He's got a great future ahead of him. As a person, he's a fun guy, great to be around in the locker room. He's having a good time with just about everyone. He gets along with just about everyone. He's pretty good at doing some imitations. I think those will get better as he gets older, too. He has a lot of fun, as I think some people saw over at the fashion show the other day. He's definitely a fun-loving guy that can keep everyone amused and laughing in the locker room. Q. Has he imitated you? JAMES BLAKE: I don't know. I haven't seen him do that one. I've seen his Nadal. I've seen his Andy. What else did he do? I don't know which other ones he's done. But I've never seen him do me. I don't know. I don't think I do anything that unique on the court. Q. What is his best one? JAMES BLAKE: I think he does Andy pretty well. Q. Going around now with the book out, do you find the fans react to you in any different way? JAMES BLAKE: I definitely noticed it a little bit when I do the book signings. It's great. It does make a difference to me. They'll come up and tell me a personal story or just there's a lot of people usually there, they don't have a whole lot of time to sit and chat. To tell me it made a difference, to tell me they're inspired or their kids are inspired or anything like that, it really does make a difference. That's something that I really strived for in writing that book, to know people could relate to me as a human being, not just as a guy they see on TV for two hours playing tennis. Not many people can relate to performing what they do best in front of 20,000 people and going out there and competing against world-class athletes, but they can relate to a very human story, having family issues, having your friends support you and all that kind of stuff. So they relate to that much better. It's something that I wanted people to realize. It's great to see that people can now know so much about me. It's definitely a little strange now the fact that people know so much about me. Most people that come up to me I don't know, so it's a bit of an unfair playing field. But it's an honor to know they're inspired or they're able to relate to me. Q. How did you find the time to write the book? JAMES BLAKE: Well, it took a while. It took probably a little over a year to finish. It was just a matter of a ton of emails going back and forth between me and the other writer, Andrew Friedman, a ton of editing. He actually traveled on the road with me for a couple weeks, just being around. He had to do a ton of interviews with all my friends as well. It was a lot of work from him. For me, I actually wok better that way. At school I always did better in the season when it was tennis season, when you have a regiment (sic). You have to be at practice at this time, you know you have to do homework at this time, you know you have to be to sleep at this time to be rested. Maybe that's why I was playing well last year, I was regimented. I knew I had to practice, I knew I had to get things done. It meant I had to go home, write something, send it off to Andrew. I had kind of strict time frames. Maybe I don't do as well when I have so much free time on my hands. Q. As a player, you always want to improve your standing. Knowing that the top two spots are almost impossible to reach with Nadal and Federer, how does it feel? Is it frustrating or just motivating? JAMES BLAKE: Definitely it's a motivation. You go out to the practice court, none of us are going out to the practice court saying one and two are untouchable. We know it's a long way to go, it's a long mountain to reach the summit. It's something that's motivating. We're playing against possibly the greatest player of all time, possibly the greatest clay courter of all time. I hope none of us - I don't want to speak for them - but when I go on the court with both of them, I don't ever go into the match saying, It's been a good tournament, but now I'm going to lose, pack my bags, get ready to go. I always go into it thinking I have a good chance to win this match as everyone because when I feel like I'm playing well, I can compete with them or really anyone. You know, Roger stepped up every time, not let that happen for me. After the match, I can be impressed with him, what he's doing. But before the match, during the match, I have to focus on what I'm doing. So I don't think they're untouchable. What you have to do when someone's playing that well for me is make them do it over and over again. Roger has been doing it. If he continues to do it, he will go down as the greatest player of all time. We can't just lie down and give it to him; we have to make him work for it, make him prove he's the best of all time, not hand him that crown before he deserves it. I think he will deserve it by the end, but that's going to be a credit to all of us for making him earn it. Q. Taking yourself and the rest of the field out of the equation, is it good for men's tennis to have the kind of rivalry where guys are meeting consistently in the majors or finals? Is that a good thing or bad thing? JAMES BLAKE: Well, we'll see with the fan support, how much people like it. I think it's good to have them be such rivals, but also the fact there's such a contrast in their styles of play and their demeanors, kind of everything they do. One's a righty. One's a lefty. Roger is extremely laid back. Rafael is so hyper, he doesn't sit still ever. One of them is better on clay. One is the greatest on grass. It's fun for a tennis player to see. It's similar to a Sampras-Agassi thing except Sampras-Agassi you have the market of America. For me, I saw that all the time. Now you don't see it as much in America with Federer-Nadal. I think worldwide it's been great, the exposure they've gotten, the amount of accolades they've gotten outside of tennis to cross over. All those Laureus awards and everything is something that's great to have tennis exposed in a crossover way. Q. Can Americans warm up to a rivalry between a Spaniard and a Swiss? JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I hope they can. I really do believe it's difficult for American fans to warm up to it since we have so many other things going on with baseball, basketball, football, and now they're trying to make soccer. I don't know if that's going to fly either (smiling). I think it's tough for them to relate until they maybe see the human aspect of both of them, until they learn about how hard Federer has worked to stay at this level, to learn that he had a temper when he was a kid, he overcame that, to learn about Rafael, learn just little things about them. As they get to know them more personally, as they see them more and more, maybe it's a possibility. But I hope they can because they're both great guys, they're both great champions, and they deserve all the credit they get. Q. You're a Mets guy over the Yankees? JAMES BLAKE: Absolutely. Q. Why is that? JAMES BLAKE: My brother's the only Yankees fan in the family. We think he's adopted. My parents were both Mets fans. I was born in '79. So '86, to watch the Mets go all the way in '86 was kind of my first foray into being a baseball fan. I'll never forget that year. Ever since then I've been a Mets fan, just loved them. This year they're doing great. I've gotten to meet a couple of them, gotten to be at Shea Stadium, batting practice. David Wright came to my charity event a couple years ago. Very classy guy, a great player. Always been a fan of the Mets. Q. You're no stranger to cards or Vegas. What is your take on the investigation going on with the ATP? JAMES BLAKE: I don't know if we're even allowed to comment on it or not, but I really hope they get to the bottom of it. If anyone is clearly caught cheating or gambling on tennis or anything like that, then I support whatever the strictest punishment to be. But I think we've all learned from the Duke case not to condemn anyone and to actually believe in the innocent until proven guilty. That's what I'm going on. But if someone is eventually convicted or anything, proven to be guilty, then that person needs to be handled with to the fullest extent of the law. Q. Do you think there's a temptation to do that in tennis or a problem at all? JAMES BLAKE: I definitely think there's the temptation when it comes to the types of people that might want to take advantage of any sport 'cause when you have a one-on-one sport, it's easier to fix than, say, a baseball game where there's nine people that are going to have an effect than it. But I think our sport has, to this point, been extremely clean. I know so many guys in the locker room. The amount of integrity in each locker room is very impressive. I hope none of those guys fall prey to that temptation. But I'm sure the people who are, like you said, the Vegas ones, the people who have the -- a ton of money riding on all these things, I'm sure they're tempted to get involved in tennis and I hope they're kept away from tennis. THE MODERATOR: For the record, when he took batting practice, he failed to homer at Shea. JAMES BLAKE: But I did in Houston and in Bridgeport near my home, and I will next week in Cincinnati. Q. Bat lefty or righty? JAMES BLAKE: Righty. 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