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ROGERS MASTERS

August 8, 2007

James Blake

MONTREAL, QUEBEC

THE MODERATOR: Officially, the medical is an abdominal muscle strain. Questions, please, for James Blake.

Q. Something in practice? Something that's lingering? Tweaked on the court?
JAMES BLAKE: I think I did it in practice just a couple days ago. Noticed it when I'm serving. It's something where I can hit fine, I can play baseline rallies, doesn't really affect me. But the reaching-up motion for my serve is what happens.
It's happened to a lot of players. Same thing that Tommy had. You pull it a little; if you keep trying more and more, that's how Tommy Haas tore his at Wimbledon, was out for four, five weeks.
That's been known to happen to a few tennis players, just because of the motion of the serve, how violent it is. I know it could get worse because right now it is just a strain. With that being the case, I hope four, five days of rest, ice, ultrasound, all the other treatments all the guys downstairs will do for me, I hope it will be okay for Cincinnati.
It's hard to tell 'cause I need to be careful with the US Open coming up. I don't want to do something that's going to cause some serious damage.

Q. One of the major reasons why you wanted to shut it down, one rip could cause some damage?
JAMES BLAKE: That's definitely what I'm trying to avoid. My coach is a very conservative person. I finally maybe listened to him in terms of it's not worth it to go out there and try and kind of fight through something when even if by some miracle I would have won today, not being able to really serve, I'd be able to go after it, there's no way I'd be able to play tomorrow.
It kind of doesn't make sense to go out and try it. Lleyton is a great player. There's no guarantee when I'm playing well I'm going to have success. It just wouldn't make sense to try it. If this was the last match of my entire career, maybe I'd chance it. Hopefully I'm counting on more years and more tournaments this summer. I need to be careful and be smart about it.

Q. When did you take the decision?
JAMES BLAKE: This morning. Yesterday after the match, I noticed it. Before the match, they warmed it up really good. I didn't feel it much during the first set yesterday. Then in the second set I started in noticing it more. Actually in the tiebreaker, I hit one kick serve where I felt it pretty painfully. I noticed it then, that I needed to get something done.
Right after the match I went into the trainers, got ultrasound, got everything they could do. They scanned it, looked at it and everything. They said it wasn't too severe at that point. They just did a whole bunch of treatment. I was kind of hoping for a nice miraculous recovery last night. I told them I'd make the decision this morning. Unfortunately, it wasn't there.
It's still painful. In fact, it felt even worse this morning than it did last night because I guess just after all the adrenaline of playing the match, it kind of maybe numbed it a little. Now I notice it a lot more.
I decided that I just really can't do it. If I were to go out there and try, I know I'd cause more harm. I can't afford to do that.

Q. Are you going to have treatment in Montréal or Cincinnati?
JAMES BLAKE: I'm going to stay here in Montréal today, most likely go to Cincinnati tomorrow. Doing fitness things for my legs is fine, so I might go to Cincinnati and try to get used to the heat, maybe run outdoors a little bit, take some sort of a silver lining out of it of getting there early, trying to get used to that hundred-degree weather.
I've already talked to the doctors and trainers here, they have some connections in Cincinnati, even if the trainers aren't there, that I can get treatment done tomorrow, then the trainers will be there on Friday. I'll get to Cincinnati early and hopefully be ready to go for Tuesday.

End of FastScripts

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