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PILOT PEN TENNIS PRESENTED BY SCHICK

August 24, 2007

James Blake

NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Did you even consider we were on deadline?
JAMES BLAKE: Even worse, I kept the trainer here. He was here at 9:00 in the morning. I just had him stretch me. He's been here since 9:00 in the morning and he's just getting to leave. I feel bad for him. I think he deserves overtime. You guys probably too, but that depends how nice of a story you write about me.

Q. Pretty routine win there?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, exactly. Very routine. No, it was great tennis and felt good all match. Had a little spot there the second set where I felt I wasn't returning very well and not take advantage when I had second serves coming at me. But after that I felt good going to the breaker.
You know, a lot people I think would have gotten down on themselves after letting a couple match points get away from them. But with the way I've been feeling and playing and how confident I was, I just -- I don't know to describe the feeling. When you go into those late situations in matches when you feel this confidence you just don't feel like you're going to lose. It just doesn't really enter into your mind.
That's a great feeling, and glad it worked for me today. I think partly the crowd and partly just the confidence I had, I don't think I missed one first serve in the breaker, and don't think he made one. Those are the kind of things that just go your way when you're that confident.

Q. Looks like he plays like you play: Big forehand, chases a lot of balls down. Is that a fair assessment?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah. I think his two-handed backhand is unbelievable. He hit that really solid. I think he hits his forehand great when he has time. I think it's a longer swing so it might be better on clay and might be a little more susceptible to be attacked than mine is, I hope. But I don't know. But, yeah, otherwise pretty similar.
But he played really well tonight, and that's why I think it was a very tight match and why we had a lot of great points.

Q. Can you explain you thought process when you're up 40-15 and you lose those two match points and how you recover from that?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah. Like I said I was still thinking that no matter what I was still in the driver's seat because I felt I was playing well enough to win whether it goes to a tiebreaker or whether I break him at 5-6. No matter what, I felt like I was playing well enough.
If he came up with a couple good shots there like he did, and I made I think one error on my forehand that I felt like I shouldn't have. But I wasn't going to change the plan and start pushing. I wasn't going to do anything different. I was going to keep going for it, because I felt like I was playing well enough to win.
I know a lot people would get down and I wanted to make sure that I wasn't down at all. I was still going to go after him at the 5-4 game when he was serving. He played a great game there. There was nothing I could do. And then I think I held at Love, so I was just kind of sticking to my game plan that had gotten me there and gave me the chance instead of panicking like some people might do when they lose a situation like that. They might panic and change their game and try to do something different.
But it got me there, and I felt like I was, at that point, playing well enough to win, so there was no reason to change.

Q. Talk about your emotion when the last ball fell out there.
JAMES BLAKE: Oh, it was great. I mean, at 6-2 you like to feel comfortable. But having lost a couple match points already you know that it can change quickly, especially when two of them might have been on his serves.
I made another first serve, which was a great feeling. I wanted to get it into the body at least jam him and hopefully when you're doing that maybe get a sitter of a return and be able to attack and come forward.
I wanted to be moving forward on that. That was something I definitely said was that I was going to be moving forward and taking advantage at the first chance I got. He luckily missed it and he really hadn't been giving me many free points at all on my serve. That actually had barely entered into my mind that I was going to get a free point on it when I decided to go body, but lucky for me that it did.

Q. Playing Mardy, was that motivation at all?
JAMES BLAKE: Well, no. I mean, I was happy to watch him. I watched him play today. I was really excited for him and it's great to see him playing well and confident again and his knee is healthy and everything is going the way I know it can for him.
I know it's going to be a lot of fun tomorrow, and it's -- you know, I do love playing him because we can be completely business-like on the court and then be buddies right after, so I'm not worried about that.
He's got a great game for to us battle. His backhand is one of the best on tour. I, of course hit my forehand a little better. So we're going to be trying to pick out what we can do to each other. We do it every day in practice, so it'll be fun to do it in front of hopefully ten or fifteen thousand people here.

Q. You going let the J Block loose again?
JAMES BLAKE: I don't know how they're going to react tomorrow, because they've all gotten to know Mardy so well, too. They might not want to be too vocal on my side. Then again, they might be. I don't know. I really don't know how they're going to react, because I've never played someone that's such a good friend here in New Haven that they might be a little split.
But I think they know who to cheer for. Either way they'll be happy at the end of match because I know we'll both give it our best.

Q. Is it true the last time Mardy was up here was to go to a 4th of July picnic at your house in Fairfield?
JAMES BLAKE: We did that. We were actually the official egg toss champion that year. Still have the trophy, which is big. There was a trophy made for it. I think Mardy has fond memories of Fairfield. We definitely had a good time. I got to get him back again. I lost last year in the egg toss and didn't have a good enough partner, so Mardy and I will have to team up again for an egg toss title.

Q. Is there anything about your game that he doesn't know?
JAMES BLAKE: No.

Q. Is there any surprise at all?
JAMES BLAKE: No. Nothing. There's nothing I don't know about his and nothing he doesn't know about mine. Because if there's anyone on tour I know their game, it's him. I've played more practice sets and more practice matches and more drilling with him than anyone else on tour.

Q. Does your girlfriend do a game show, too?
JAMES BLAKE: No. No, number -- mine doesn't have a number, but she will remind you, of course, that she is also a lawyer, so that's also the brains as well as its beauty in the relationship.

End of FastScripts

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