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U.S. OPEN

September 3, 2009

James Blake

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

J. BLAKE/O. Rochus
6-4, 3-6, 7-6, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Novak made a comment that sometimes it is better to be tested early on in a tournament, especially a tournament that lasts a fortnight. Do you feel the same way?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I think this is great for me. Playing a guy like Ollie Rochus who can get to a ton of balls, make you work, very tricky. Really makes you win. He's not going to give you a lot of free points.
I can count on two hands the amount of times he gave me free points on my second serve or when I just hit a rally ball and he just missed. I mean, he made me work for every point.
That's a great feeling, to know you can get through a match like that. Physically, it's good for me because I haven't been on the court as much. So I want to see how I react, how my body holds up tomorrow. Right now I feel great. Toe feels good. Legs feel great. So I know I've done some good work in the pool and on the bike.
It's good to get that test so you're not wondering if it's fourth round, quarterfinals or something and you're in a fifth set, you're wondering if your body will hold up. Now I feel great. I feel confident about that. I feel confident about a close match.
I had some nail-biting moments there in the tiebreaker in the third set. Could have gone either way. To get through that and feel good, get the emotions and feel the crowd getting into it, everything about it was really good.

Q. You mentioned the tiebreaker. The way you played for that three or four points, that must give you a lot of confidence.
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, gave me tons of confidence. When you don't play matches for a long time, I felt like in Cincinnati what was the biggest difference, I didn't capitalize on the big points. When you're confident, playing well, you're going to play those points well. You're going to play with confidence, play your A game, put pressure on the other guy.
From 6-3 on, that's what I did to win five straight points and close out that tiebreaker. I played my kind of tennis. I went for my forehands. I hit a couple big winners with it. I hit a couple good serves. I think he did give me a free one there little bit at 6-All.
You know, that didn't happen very often, but I think it had a lot to do with me taking my rips and taking my chances and making them at those big moments.
It felt great. Again, knowing going forward that if it's 6-All in the tiebreaker Saturday when I'm playing Robredo, I can go for my shots and feel confident.

Q. Were you surprised at Rochus' ability to hang in there?
JAMES BLAKE: No. I wasn't surprised at all. I played him four times. First time I played him, he beat me up. He beat me bad. I mean, he never gave me anything for free. That was on clay. He was just working me. Get to everything. As soon as he got a short ball, he was attacking me as well as anyone I've played on clay really.
So I knew every time I go in, he's a dangerous player. Obviously he's not huge in stature, but he makes up for it with such unbelievable talent, to just really keep every ball in the court and get to everything. He gives you no free ones, just runs down balls. I'd love to see him just on a track. That guy is quick.
So it was perfect for me to get all that work in. Probably see how frustrating it is sometimes to play me when I make some of those gets, but I think he did does it even better. He plays defense very, very well. I knew there was going to be no part of this match that was easy. The only thing I may have is that I got a lot of looks at serves.
In today's men's game, there's a lot of guys who barely have a shot at some of their serves, playing a guy like John Isner, Ivo Karlovic, Andy Roddick, sometimes it's not in your control on their serves.
With Ollie, you know you're going to get a lot of looks at serves. That's one thing I had a benefit of tonight.

Q. It's certainly been a good day for American men's tennis here. Jesse Witten was talking about hoping this would carry over beyond two weeks here, as it has all summer, get back to the level it was a few years ago. What are your thoughts about that?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I always want American tennis to do well. I was happy sitting in the locker room watching Jesse. I was sitting in there getting stretched, watching him sign autograph after autograph. That's great to see him enjoying it, throwing his racquet into the crowd. Such a big win for him.
So we're all happy when the other Americans are doing well. I was just cooling down at the same time as John Isner, talking a lot with him. We're all happy for each other. It's great to see us feeding off each other.
To compare us or to expect the same as what happened in years past, I think it's been done a million times, and I've always said I think it's a little unfair. The game has changed so much. It's become so much more globalized. I don't think there's going to be countries dominating the way we did in years past with the likes of Sampras, Agassi, Chang.
I think we just have to look at that as kind of the golden era and say that that's something that's probably never going to come back, but we appreciate how hard those guys worked and what they did for the sport.
What we're doing is we're doing our best. Andy has been an absolutely stalwart in the world, top 5, top 10 in the world. That's not easy to do these days. He hasn't just rested on having a huge serve and getting a lot of free points off that. He works at the rest of his game. You see that now. He's a better player now than he was five years ago I think. All these young guys are hungry. We're all getting better, feeding off each other.
Sam Querrey is just a great talent. He's getting better and better and enjoying the game. We're all happy to see it. I mean, I just think American tennis is in a good spot. We're Davis Cup champions a couple years ago. We got the best doubles team in the world. We got a guy in the top 10. We got Sam shooting up. My ranking has been dropping a little thanks to some injuries and some poor play. But I don't feel like I'm that far off from where I was when I was top 10.
So I think we have some pretty good talent in the States. I put our top four or five, six guys against most countries, and I think we're going to come out looking pretty good.

Q. The tennis fans come out to cheer for great tennis, but you've always been a fan favorite here, from the area. Talk about what the experience is like.
JAMES BLAKE: It's something special 'cause I was a fan here. I came to watch here. I've told this story a few times. I think I still owe them a few dollars because I snuck in a couple times. I just loved seeing this kind of tennis up close.
Honestly, I never dreamed -- I actually couldn't believe that anyone could be as good as these players were that were out here. To think that I could was just unfathomable. Now I'm out here playing.
I know there are kids up there watching, thinking it's impossible. But it's so fun for me going out there and knowing that I was a fan, and now these kids are probably sneaking down to the expensive seats. That, to me, is so fun. I'm really a fan of this tournament. Being out there playing and getting that opportunity is so rare. I know how few people get that.
I just got a message from one of my friends saying, It looked like it was fun when you were getting the emotions, when the people were feeding off you after that tiebreaker. I said, Honestly, there are not many better feelings in the world than you showing your emotions and 15,000 people feeding off it. There really can't be much better.
I think that's a big reason people miss it when they're gone, because there aren't many things that can replace that feeling. I know how lucky I am that I get to feel that. I know how lucky we all are to be a part of such a great tradition here at the US Open and to get to do what we love for a living and get that great feeling.
I know there's going to be a lot of days when I come in here, I'm disappointed, I wonder why I do this, beat myself up for losing, being injured. Days like today, when they're feeding off that emotion, make you want to play this game forever. It makes you so happy that this is your career.

Q. This tournament pretty much caps the year. Is it something that you think about all year long?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah. For me, the US Open is kind of my Super Bowl. It's probably my best chance at winning a slam. It's the courts that I prefer the most. It's the crowd that's favoring me, that's always on my side. It's close to home. I got tons of friends and family. I feel the most comfortable here in the States obviously.
For me, this is my biggest event of the year and what I always look forward to, what I always try to peak for. I've had my best results here. Just have so much fun when I'm playing here.

Q. Do you view this Open is more important for you to salvage an injury-plagued year for you?
JAMES BLAKE: I try not to think about the whole year in general that way, that one tournament is going to change it. Obviously, a great result could do that.
I just think there's going to be some bad luck in my career. There's going to be some injuries. There's going to be some times you're not playing your best. I don't worry too much about the ranking. As soon as I knew I was out for four or five weeks, I made a decision to stop looking at the rankings. I know I'm going to drop.
I learned a long time ago when I was thinking about rankings is when I was playing too tentative. I was worried that this guy is ranked 60, this guy is ranked 70, I should beat him. I'm not sure what Ollie is ranked. I think I heard at the beginning he was ranked 90 in the world. He played better than a guy ranked 90 in the world. I don't worry too much about those, where my ranking is going to finish at the end of the year. If I'm playing well, I can go into any tournament and play with the best players in the world.
It's always nice to be seeded high. You're not going to get -- you're guaranteed you're not going to get a terrible draw right away. Other than that, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference to me.

Q. You spoke about the injuries. What about the actual tennis difficulties that you've had this year? What do you put that down to? Loss of confidence?
JAMES BLAKE: I think, you know, it's one of those things where in '04 I had such bad injuries I was out for a long time. You set your mind to the fact you know you're gone for a while. It's tough, but it's almost easier to just accept it.
This year I've had little injuries that end up being just as or more frustrating because you want to be on the court right away. You think it's just two weeks, I'll be out and I'll be back. Rolled an ankle, hurt my knee before Miami. Now I broke my toe. Just these little things that keep you out for a little while. You don't have your confidence. If you're not playing match after match after match, you're losing a little confidence. So then you get out there, you're testing things out, you're not sure, you're not playing your best. Before you know it, the year's almost done. We're here at the Open. I haven't played my best tennis most of this year.
I don't see why I can't here. I played two good matches and can keep playing well. It just does get frustrating when you get these little injuries, especially the last one, breaking my toe, just seemed so foolish. It cost me most of my summer.
I've come back from injuries before, and this will be no different. Hopefully just bring that ranking back and win a lot of matches, and hopefully everything else will take care of itself.

Q. No residual pain? How did you do it?
JAMES BLAKE: I walked into a bag. It's foolish. I was in Croatia after my first match. Lights were off in my room. I'm a bit of a slob, so there's bags thrown everywhere. I walked into the side of one of those roller bags that's all hard plastic.
I guess I just hit it on the exact wrong angle, right on the weak spot on my pinky toe, and broke it. Then probably didn't help that I played a three-and-a-half-hour match with Cilic with a broken toe. When I came off there, probably two or three sizes too big, black and blue, pretty gross. That's when I figured there might be something wrong with it.
Just a mis-step basically in the dark when you're getting up in the middle of the night kind of thing. I think it's actually my karmic punishment for making fun of my brother doing the exact same thing three or four years ago. I couldn't stop making fun of such a great athlete doing something so foolish. Now I get my payback.

Q. Was the J Block a little bit more feisty this time around?
JAMES BLAKE: J Block is always feisty. They have a lot of fun. As it gets later, maybe they got a little feistier. As the crowd gets, shall we say Heinekenized, they have a lot of fun. Somehow the J Block grows. Once people have a few drinks, they see how much fun the guys are having cheering for me, there will be people that just want to be around them, having fun, cheering and getting loud and getting excited.
That's one of the great things about sports is having a biased crowd, having people that are cheering for you, cheering against you. As soon as the match is over, they can go back to being friends whether they were for or against you.
I've always loved that about sports. It's not always as much in tennis, because you don't have usually a home team. But here I feel like the home team. They get behind me and it makes a difference.
They're all having a great time. I'm happy to go through the craziness dealing with the tickets again tomorrow for them on Saturday. It's all worth it to see them appreciating the times when I'm having a great time. They're there for some down times and they're here for some good times, too.

Q. Do you feel 100% physically fit? If so, is there a feeling that you can let it all hang out?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I definitely feel physically fit, feel great. Toe feels good. Legs feel great. Shoulder feels good. Everything that tends to hurt tennis players, they all feel good right now.
So at 29, that's probably rare. But I feel good now. Looking forward to continuing this hopefully for another week and a half.

Q. There's a rumor floating around you might be going over to Citi Field to take batting practice in the next week.
JAMES BLAKE: I would love to. Maybe after the tournament. I've done it the last couple years before the tournament, but they weren't around when I had the chance. Maybe afterwards.
That field is pretty big. I don't know if I can get one out. A couple more injuries and I might be playing shortstop.

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