|
 |
|
|
James Blake Interview - Miami, March 27
Posted on March 28, 2009
J. BLAKE/J. Benneteau
6-4, 6-4
An interview with:
JAMES BLAKE
THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.
Q. How's it feel out there?
JAMES BLAKE: It was all right. It's a little
windy, a little humid, but the kind of conditions you
expect here in Miami. It was good to get a win,
both of them -- in both sets breaking at 4-5. Julien
might have gotten a little tight. I put enough
pressure on him to come through at the end. It's a
good feeling.
Q. What's it take to win out here for
you? What do you think it's going to take for
you to keep this going, to keep winning out
here?
JAMES BLAKE: I think I'm going to have
to serve a little better. I definitely don't think that
was ideal today. I did only get broken once, but it
had more to do with how I was playing from the
back than getting free points on my serve and
really dictating with my serve.
So I'm going to need to do that against
probably the rest of the players I play. So that's
something I'll definitely work on tomorrow.
I returned okay. I think I could have done
a little better job, but otherwise I felt like I was
hitting the ball pretty darn well from the back of the
court, moving forward when I needed to, volleying
well when I needed to.
It was just a matter of making sure to get a
few more free points on my first serve, hopefully.
Could have had something to do with the wind
today, too. But I don't think I need to really
drastically change anything. I've beaten a lot of
these guys before. It's just a matter of kind of
putting it together and doing it here.
Q. Where do you place this tournament
worldwide? Let's say after the majors in terms
of the fanfare of events.
JAMES BLAKE: This is right up there. If
it's not No. 1 -- No.1, 2 or 3. It's, for me, probably
the biggest outside of the Slams. That's if you're
not counting Davis Cup. I put that right up there,
and then the special events like the Olympics.
You know, our Masters 1000s, as they're
called now, I think, they're all huge because you
got the top players. I think they might be just as
tough or almost as tough as a Slam to win because
you're playing so many great players so quickly.
You don't have any time to ease into. Benneteau
is a great player. I'm going to have to play possibly
Berdych or Youzhny next.
You don't get a break from playing a top
player every match at these tournaments. It's
pretty difficult, and this one and Indian Wells are
probably the two biggest because they're the 96
draws.
They say it's the fifth Slam, and it's that for
a reason.
Q. Can you think of another
tournament where you get to promote your
game as much as you get to promote here at
the Sony Ericsson, doing whatever it can be,
going to the sea aquarium, whatever?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I don't think there
are any that do promote it quite the same. This
player party has kind of the biggest guest list you'd
see of any of the tournament's player parties, just
in terms of the players turning up and being a part
of the scene and letting everyone know how much
they like this tournament. They promote it.
I think having the men and women
together always helps, because you get fans of
women's tennis coming to watch the men's, and
fans of men's tennis coming out to watch women's.
You get a few more personalities you wouldn't see
when it's just one of the genders, so that's great.
I think Miami just attracts, you know, a lot
of great people and a lot of great times. People
want to have fun here, and the fans come out and
hopefully have a good time, too.
Q. Do you have a preference between
Grandstand and Stadium Court? Obviously
normally you're on stadium.
JAMES BLAKE: It's always exciting to
play on Stadium Court and get all the fans
involved. I think I've got a pretty good record out
on Grandstand. I remember one of my first kind of
big wins on tour ever was out there on Grandstand
against Guillermo Canas. Probably too many
years for me to remember back.
But it brings back good memories there,
and hopefully it will continue to. Luckily a win is a
win no matter which court you're on Court 8, it still
counts. You're still into the next round.
Sometimes then maybe it feels like you've
earned your way on to Stadium. If you got a few
wins before you get out there, you feel like you
deserve to be out there.
Q. Is there a different feeling in the
men's game today as opposed to a year ago
when everybody was chasing Federer, and now
he comes off of five losses to Murray, he's not
beating Nadal?
JAMES BLAKE: I think it's a very liquid
environment always. It's always changing. Even
the years when Federer was dominating, none of
us were out here just admitting, you know, defeat.
We're not saying we're done and he's just too
good. We were all trying to find ways to improve
and catch up to him, and now we're doing the
same trying to catch up to Nadal.
It just changes so quickly. You know, one
or two months of low confidence or, you know,
changing something in your game can really
change so much. The game is always improving,
you know. If you look at tapes of guys 10 years
ago, it wasn't as fast. The game was not as quick.
It wasn't as powerful. The guys weren't as fit.
It just keeps getting better and better.
Every year the game is improving, whether it's 2%,
5%, 10%. It's just getting better. You look at guys
like Lleyton Hewitt who was No. 1 in the world, and
I don't see any way he's gotten worse over the last
four or five years. But he's not ranked No. 1 in the
world or near it even because the game just keeps
improving.
It's something that we all have to be aware
of and keep trying to push forward, no matter if we
feel content with our ranking. You got to get better
if you're going to just keep it the same.
Q. Do you sense or do the players kind
of talk about even the sense of a different
persona about Roger now at all?
JAMES BLAKE: You know, I've always
felt Roger is a very laid-back guy, about as nice as
can be in the locker room. I don't think it's
changed.
You know, it's really a refreshing thing to
see the top guys in our sport being such nice guys.
Roger, you see Rafa in the rocker room, you see
Andy, both Andys, Andy Murray and Andy
Roddick.
I really don't know if there was ever a
time -- obviously I've never been involved in any
other era of the sport -- but I don't know of any
sport or any era where you've got those kind of
personalities, those kind of, you know, talents
being that great of guys.
I think we're lucky in that regard. But I
don't think Roger has changed at all.
Q. Do you sense he doesn't have the
confidence he used to at all, or not?
JAMES BLAKE: I don't feel that. You
know, I haven't played him in the last six months or
so, but he definitely still seems -- like he never, I
don't know, had that No. 1 mentality or whatever
when he came into the locker room. I didn't feel
like before he was looking down on people, where
he's better than anyone else or he's above picking
up his own trash or tossing out his dirty towels or
anything.
He's always been just a very
down-to-earth guy, and I don't think that's changed
now that he's 2 in the world. I don't think it will
change no matter what the circumstances are on
the court.
I like the fact that I think that's just the way
he was raised, is to be a , you know, polite,
respectful guy. I credit him with that, because a lot
of people in his position could have lost that along
the way.
Q. You do have in the next round
Tomas Berdych or Mikhail Youzhny. With
whom will you feel more comfortable against?
JAMES BLAKE: They're both great
players. Whoever wins obviously would have had
to play a good match against another top player. I
know it won't be easy no matter who. I have a very
emotional win over Youzhny in the Davis Cup final,
so I have good memories if I get a chance to play
him.
Berdych, we've had some very close
matches. I've got a couple wins to draw on that
memory, so I'm not really gonna root for one over
the other. I just know I'll have to play slightly
different games against both of them. But
whichever one comes out, I know it will be tough.
Q. Do you wonder sometimes about
the need for changing, like you just said, the
Masters 1000, then the Masters Series. People
are calling it the Super 9. Do you wonder
what's the point and whether you're confusing
the public on that?
JAMES BLAKE: I wonder that sometimes,
but I know their goal is to make it simpler for the
public. Now with the Slams being 2000, these
Masters being a 1000, then a 500, then a 250, it's
supposed to be a simple formula or simple
situation for the fans to follow. I hope that's true.
It's tough for me, because I'm so involved
in it that I know exactly what's going on. I know
how to follow it pretty easily, but I know my friends
at home sometimes call tennis the rocket science
of sports because it's just tough to figure out, you
know, the Davis Cup, when that is, you know,
which tournaments matter, how your ranking can
drop when you just made the finals when you had
won it last year.
Just things like that make it difficult. But I
hope enough fans are out there that just want to
see good tennis, and they figure the rankings will
figure themselves out, they'll work themselves out.
Right now Nadal has played the best tennis for the
last year and he's No. 1 in the world, so the
ranking system for right now seems to be working.
I hope it does become simpler, I hope the
fans can follow it, and it also makes it fair for the
players. I just -- I really hope it never becomes
something that just to please the fans we're going
to make it unfair to some of the players.
Q. When you talk about Roger Federer,
the fact he's No. 2 and that some people are
saying, Oh, his game has been off and what
have you, is that dangerous to do with a guy
that's been this good for this long, to start
talking about the holes in his...
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, it's very
dangerous. The guy is going to go down as
possibly the greatest player of all time. And to start
saying he's not as good as he used to be, it's the
same thing people did with Tiger Woods, saying
he's not as good, he is in a slump. But it's based
on the bar being set so high.
But such a great athlete in an individual
sport that it's so overly scrutinized. It's at times
unfair, but I assume a lot of people aren't going to
shed too many tears over the plight of Roger
Federer. He's obviously one of the greatest of all
time and has had so much success.
I think you saw it when people counted
Pete Sampras out before his last Grand Slam win
at the US Open. I just don't think anyone with that
kind of experience and that kind of talent can ever
be counted out of any tournament. I see him as
one of the favorites no matter how old he is, no
matter what -- just based on that experience that
he's had and how many Grand Slams and how
many Super 9s or Masters Series or Masters
1000s that he's won. He just has that knack for
winning.
Q. Do the players at all talk about the
impact, possible impact, of the financial crisis
on sponsors? Because I'm just picturing the
Open, the billboard at the Open with all the
sponsors, all the New York banks, Lehman
Brothers and the like. I don't know what's
going to happen this year.
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, I don't know what's
going to happen either. I think we do consider it,
we think about it, but it's one of those things that's
out of our control.
We can go out and play good tennis and
hope the fans are there and hope the sponsors are
there to support the tennis. All we can do is go out
and play our best tennis and maybe be a little safer
in the marketplace and maybe not invest quite as
much.
But we're going to do our best to make
sure we're putting out our best product, and that's,
I think, part of the Masters 1000 series, is making
sure our best are out there all the time. Once we
do that, you know, the rest of it is out of our control.
So we can't worry too much about it.
Q. Andy and Mardy are going to play
Dwyane Wade in Horse on Sunday. I just
wonder how you would handicap that matchup.
JAMES BLAKE: If they're both together
and they get about five extra letters, they might --
no, they still don't have a chance. I think that will
be funny, though. He'll have a good time with
them. Mardy's actually got a pretty good shot,
though. Andy -- Mardy's got a pretty good shot.
So that might be interesting. (Laughter.)
But it will be pretty funny. Dwyane is a
really nice guy, a class act, and I don't think they
have much chance against an MVP candidate. It
will be fun, and hopefully the cameras will be
rolling and you can watch Andy throw up a few
bricks.
FastScripts by ASAP Sports
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
