By Bill Simons
Glory was in his grasp—a victory that would have delivered lasting fame and a bounty of riches was before him.
On a balmy September night, a streaking James Blake, who had just downed Rafa Nadal, faced the aging icon Andre Agassi in a match for the ages. Simply put, the 2005 Blake-Agassi quarterfinal was—and remains—the most compelling match ever in the most compelling of all American tournaments.
Before over 20,000 amazed (and rather plastered) fans, Blake stood poised on the brink of a signature victory like no other. And, with the match knotted at 5-5 in the fifth-set tiebreak, he was just two points from triumph. Blake stepped in on a limp Agassi return of serve—now, he could unleash his go-to weapon, his howitzer forehand, a shot he had blasted a million times. But in that moment, deep in the timeless New York night, when everything stopped and everything mattered, his stroke drifted an agonizing inch—well, make that two inches—beyond an uncaring baseline.
And with that, Blake’s window slammed shut. No, the guy was hardly destined to become tennis’ answer to Terry Malloy, the bitter and spiritually broken boxer portrayed by Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, who roamed around Manhattan mumbling “I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody.” Yes, there would be other triumphs: tournaments won, finals reached, Davis Cup glories gained. But in a New York moment, when the best poker player in the game needed to pull up an ace, James drew a deuce.
After Agassi prevailed 3-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, 7-6 (6), the legendary Las Vegan told the after-midnight throng, “At 1:15 in the morning, for 20,000 people to still be here—I wasn’t the winner, tennis was.” In defeat, Blake seemed whimsical, saying, “It couldn’t have been more fun to lose.”
But—and few other players have had more “buts” in their career—the loss had to be a bitter pill. Months later, Blake was still pondering it when he told IT, “I did think what if I could have beaten Robby [Ginepri in the semis] and then played Roger [Federer]. You never know what’s going to happen on a given day.”
Tennis destinies are based on razor-thin margins, and rarely has one shot so shaped a career. And it was none other than the Harvard-trained, the ever-cerebral Blake who told USA Today, “Every player at some point has felt like they’ve gotten to a certain level, and they feel like they could be one notch higher, or they feel it would be so much nicer to get that.”
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Newsflash: James Blake is not your typical ATP fellow. Raised in Yonkers, New York by an English mother who likes to write and a father who worked for IBM, the most prominent African-American male player since Arthur Ashe was actually inspired to play after hearing Ashe himself talk in Harlem. But while his family moved to the leafy Connecticut suburbs, life was not easy for the kid who suffered from scoliosis and had to wear a debilitating back brace. Worse, young Blake had a ‘tude problem. The self-described “scrawny little brat,” who wasn’t a barnburner in the juniors, went on to Harvard before heading out on the tour.
Once there, Blake didn’t exactly impose his will on the circuit. And in 2005, just as his career began to trend upward, he faced a crushing Jobian trifecta. First, he crashed downward into a net pole in Rome, and emerged just millimeters away from being completely paralyzed. Around the same time, a bout of shingles temporarily paralyzed half his face and blurred his vision. Finally, he lost his beloved father Thomas to prostate cancer.
Yet James navigated through all the devastation, rising to become America’s No. 1, and the No. 4 in the ATP. He reached the final of the 2006 Shanghai Masters, and, most of all, was part of a collegial band of American brothers—Andy Roddick, Mardy Fish, the Bryan Brothers—who, thanks to his heroics, won the 2007 Davis Cup in Portland.
Still, there were always issues with Blake. Early in his career, in 2001, Aussie Lleyton Hewitt claimed African-American US Open officials favored him for racial reasons. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, lost a chance to play for a gold medal when he fumed at his Chilean foe, Fernando Gonzales, for refusing to admit that a ball had struck him during a crucial point.
But, far more than these disputes, critics seemed to shadow Blake’s career. They noted that the American generation he led with his Yankee pal Andy Roddick was no match for the American generation before it—Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, and Michael Chang—and that it scarcely dented the Federer-Nadal duopoly that would later emerge.
More than this, cynics (in this era of musical coaches) howled that Blake was stubborn. To the dismay of some, he stayed with his childhood coach, Brian Barker, through much of his career. Most of all, critics complained that he had a one-dimensional, grip-and-rip approach built around quick forehand winners rather than crafting points with care. Of course, many admired the man and his game. His friend Justin Gimelstob told IT that James was always about “success with class. Huge forehand—he always pulled the trigger and was willing to play against the grain. He had amazing fire power. He was a great athlete with unbelievable first-strike tennis which put you under incredible pressure.”
Ultimately, Blake transcended all the “what ifs” and all the criticism. In his own words, when announcing his retirement today, he readily conceded that his journey will not end in Newport (with induction into the Hall of Fame). Rather, he hoped people would remember that he “did things the right way.” Few others in the game were so embraced in the locker room, and Blake often seemed to like the camaraderie of the tennis fraternity during rain delays or late night card games as much as the adrenaline of tennis competition under bright lights. Not surprisingly, his favorite memory is a collective one—winning the Davis Cup. Clearly, Blake always delighted in fun. As a kid he adeptly snuck into the US Open, years later, his Connecticut pals in the J-Block enlivened many of his matches; he readily admitted he would miss being one of the boys, and was said his Dad wasn’t able to share so much of his career.
Yes, Blake once faltered in a high profile midnight moment, conceding even now that “most people remember me [for] the biggest highlight and lowlight at the same time [which] was the Agassi match.” Certainly, Blake was far from being the best player in American history, and he wasn’t the best player of his era. But he was a survivor, a man of grace, and a key player in tennis’ roaming band of boys. In the end, he said, “Despite [all] the tears, I’m pretty happy.”
But few around Ashe Stadium were happy. After all, just as a great tournament was beginning, a great career was ending.
