FLUSHING MEADOWS, N.Y. — He looked a bit odd, a bit out of place. James Blake stood on the red carpet during the Opening Night Ceremony at the U.S. Open on Monday in a slick suit, purple dress shirt and tie. In one of its splashy, feel-good Ashe Stadium love-ins, the USTA was honoring Blake, among others (including Hall of Famer Martina Navratilova), for his ability to “Dream, Succeed and Inspire.”
Positioned to the side of emcee Christiane Amanpour, Blake rocked side to side, fidgeted with his hands, and glanced up at the at the big screen, where his poignant triumph-over-adversity story was being broadcast to the world. The scoliosis diagnosis, the back brace he was forced to wear for 18 hours a day, his head-on collision with a net post in Rome, the facial paralysis, the untimely death of his father and, finally, his Hollywood-scripted on-court comeback and ascension to the top 10. Blake was clearly touched by it all, but he looked as if he would gladly trade in his snappy duds for a pair of sneakers, a headband and a racket.
Just as Amanpour might have been more at home reporting from some Middle Eastern war zone, Blake would have been more comfortable on a battlefield of a different sort, trading groundstrokes in front of the New York crowd, his J-Block supporters providing a boisterous soundtrack. After all, some his best high-flying, uber-athletic moments had come on this court: his unforgettable quarterfinal clash with Andre Agassi in ’05 — a match that extended deep into the Flushing night, ended with an embrace at the net and led the victorious Agassi to profess, “Tennis won tonight.” Pushing Lleyton Hewitt to five sets in ’02. Ousting Rafael Nadal in ’05.
In truth, the event felt more like a going-away party, a thanks-for-the-memories nod to the from-Harlem-to-Harvard 30-year-old, who was historically at his best in NYC.
“They’re trying to get rid of me already,” joked Blake on Tuesday after his 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 win over Kristof Vliegen. “I hope that’s not the case.
“Some critics seem to think he has seen his best years and his active career is coming to an end. I believe, with determination and hard work he still has several years of great tennis ahead of him,” writes his mother, Betty Blake, in her new book “Mix It Up, Make It Nice: Secrets of a Tennis Mom.” That said, I won’t be upset whenever James decides to retire and lead a more normal life.”
With age (and injuries) creeping in, Blake has once again fallen on hard times. And there’s an uneasy feeling that he might not be able to pick himself up this time around. Father Time is one tough opponent. Although fellow Dream/Succeed/Inspire honoree Navratilova might beg to differ, he’s undefeated.
Blake put up one hell of a fight against Argentine Juan Martin Del Potro in the second round of the Australian Open, losing in five sets 6-4, 6-7(3), 5-7, 6-3, 10-8. After first-round losses at Rotterdam and Memphis, he reached the Delray Beach quarters, but could never maintain any momentum. He stalled in the third round at Indian Wells and fell in the second round in Miami. By April, he had ruled out the European clay-court swing due to a nagging right knee injury. In all, he missed two months and fell out of the top 100 — the first time he was ranked outside the top 100 in five years. Since making his return in Eastbourne, he’s lost nearly as many first-round matches as questions he’s fielded regarding The Big R — retirement.
If his performance against Vliegen is any indication, Blake ready to hang ’em up just yet. The No. 108-ranked American made quick work of the Belgian, whom he had yet to defeat in two previous meetings. Blake showed little sign of playing in pain, and totaled 24 winners while giving New Yorkers something to cheer about.
“It’s still exciting for me to win a match here, to have fans that are excited to see me play,” said Blake. “I don’t like to say I ever didn’t appreciate it because I really always had a great time here and fed off of them. I play with emotion. It has always helped me. But I think in ’04 when my career could have ended, it made me realize that it can end at any time, and I wanted to appreciate those things a lot more because any injury could stop it. I want to remember what this feels like. I’ve talked to some retired players that say, ‘Just enjoy it as long as you can.’ That’s what I’m trying to do.”
“I definitely know when I retire, whenever I’m done, that’s what I’m going to miss the most is the competition and the fans,” he added.
“I’m a massive James Blake fan,” said Andy Roddick, a longtime friend and Davis Cup teammate. “His career is one thing, but I also like his character. I like the way he goes about his business. He’s been a real good friend to me. I think my biggest hope for James from this point forward is he can get healthy enough to have a run that he would like, have a fair shot at playing continuously for a window, whatever that might be.”
While Blake has made an indelible imprint in Flushing Meadows, where he’s twice reached the quarterfinals, his signature moment is his 6-3, 7-6(4), 6-7(3), 7-6(3) triumph over Russia’s Mikhail Youzhny in the Davis Cup final of ’07, the year the U.S. brought home the Cup for the first time in a dozen years.
“We all played for each other,” Roddick reflected. “James won probably the biggest match of that tie. He had kind of been up and down a little bit that year in Davis Cup. For him to come up against a top-10 player with the Bryans on the next day, that was probably the match that we had circled as far as the biggest match of the tie. That’s the match I personally will remember. I felt real good about our chances of winning Davis Cup once he won that match against Youzhny.”
“That’s the one that I think I’ll remember forever because that Davis Cup team was one that had been through a lot together,” Blake reflected. “We played so many matches together, I think the most of any group, specific group, in U.S. history. We just had so much fun together. We had won a lot, we had lost a lot. We made it through that whole journey, got to the finals, and we all contributed. Andy won. I won a close one. The Bryans closed it out. We were all part of that year, part of that victory, shared holding that victory, being part of something special.”
But James Blake isn’t ready to look back. He remains focused on the road ahead. If that road leads to retirement in the coming months, so be it. For now he’s still alive at the U.S. Open. The retirement party can wait.
