James Blake (born December 28, 1979 in Yonkers, New York, United States) is an American professional tennis player and is currently the 8th ranked player in the world as of April 7, 2008. He is the second-ranked American player behind Andy Roddick. Blake is known for his speed and powerful forehands. In 2006 he reached the final of the Tennis Masters Cup but lost to World No. 1 Roger Federer in three sets, 60, 63, 64. On July 3, 2007, Blake's book, Breaking Back: How I Lost Everything and Won Back My Life, discussing his comeback after his unlucky 2004 season, was released and debuted at #22 on the New York Times bestseller list. He wrote this book along with Andrew Friedman. Early life James Blake was born in Yonkers, New York to African-American father Tommy Sr. and White British mother Betty. He has a brother, Thomas Jr., who is also a professional tennis player, and three older half-brothers, Jason, Christopher, and Howard, and a half-sister, Michelle. Blake started playing tennis at age five alongside his brother Thomas. When 13, he was diagnosed with severe scoliosis and for five years as a teenager, he was forced to wear a full-length back brace for 18 hours a day, though not while playing tennis. Blake attended Fairfield Warde High School (then called Fairfield High School), in Fairfield, Connecticut. A schoolmate was future musician John Mayer. James Blake was inspired to pursue tennis after hearing his role model, Arthur Ashe, speak to the Harlem Junior Tennis Program. Brian Barker was his first (and current) coach. He dropped out of Harvard University after his sophomore year to pursue a career in professional tennis. Career 20002001 At the age 21, Blake saw his first Davis Cup action in 2001 against India and became the third African-American heritage to play the Davis Cup for the United States (after Arthur Ashe and MaliVai Washington). Ranked No. 120 in the world, James Blake accepted a wild card into AMS Cincinnati. He beat a qualifier and Arnaud Clement to reach the round of 16 where he met Patrick Rafter. Blake came close to winning the first set (falling in a tiebreak), and after dropping the second set, Rafter, according to Blake's autobiography, complimented him at the net and boosted his confidence immeasurably by saying "Now do you believe you can beat someone like me, or even me?" 20022003 In January, Blake won the 2002 USTA Waikola Challenger in Hawaii. A month later, in Memphis, he posted his first win over a top-ten ranked opponent, Tommy Haas, who was then ranked fifth, and reached the finals, losing to Andy Roddick. He posted solid results over the summer, reaching the quarterfinals at the ATP Masters Series (AMS) event in Rome in May and then the finals at Newport in July. In August in Cincinnati, he won his first career ATP Tour title and his first ATP Masters Series title: it came in doubles with Todd Martin and it made James Blake the first African-American male to win a title of any kind in Cincinnati's 101-year history. He was also the first African-American to reach a final in Cincinnati since 1969 when Arthur Ashe reached the doubles finals with Charlie Pasarell. The next week in Washington, he won his first ATP Tour singles title by beating Andre Agassi in the semifinals and Paradorn Srichaphan in the final. At the U.S. Open, he reached the third round before falling to top-ranked Lleyton Hewitt in five sets. In 2003 his best results were a quarterfinal showing at AMS Indian Wells; a Round of 16 finish at the Australian Open, AMS Cincinnati and AMS Miami; a semifinal appearance at San Jose; and a finals appearance at Long Island. 2004 The year of 2004 was an especially difficult year for James Blake. While practicing with Robby Ginepri for the Masters event being held in Rome, he broke his neck when he slipped on the clay and collided with the net post. In July his father died as a result of stomach cancer. At the same time, Blake developed shingles, which temporarily paralyzed half his face and blurred his sight. With all these stresses and setbacks occurring all at once, Blake's future in tennis was in serious jeopardy. 2005 Blake's injuries and personal issues caused him to post relatively poor results for the first half of 2005, and by April his ranking was at No. 210. James Blake made the decision to play the Challenger circuit, the "minor leagues" of tennis, in order to gain confidence and get more matches. In May, he entered Challenger events in Tunica, Mississippi, and Forest Hills, New York, and won both. He then rejoined the ATP circuit, and by August he was playing well enough to reach the final at the International Series event in Washington D.C., where he fell to Roddick. He was then given a wild card into AMS Cincinnati, where he drew Federer in the first round. The following week he entered and won the Pilot Pen Tennis tournament in New Haven, Connecticut, defeating Feliciano Lopez in the final. His efforts that summer helped him re-enter the ATP Top 50, and after New Haven he was ranked No. 49. James Blake then accepted a wildcard into the US Open, where he defeated No. 2 Rafael Nadal in the round of 32. In the round of 16, he beat Tommy Robredo in four sets to reach the quarterfinals where he succumbed to Andre Agassi in a memorable fifth-set tiebreak after winning the first two sets. He lost 36, 36, 63, 63, 76 (6). In October at the Stockholm Open in Sweden, Blake won his third ATP tour title, defeating Srichaphan in the final. Blake finished 2005 ranked #22 in the world. 2006 Blake started the year strong, winning the title at Sydney to take his fourth ATP tour title. He defeated Russian Igor Andreev in the final. At the Australian Open he was seeded twentieth, and lost in the third round to Spaniard Tommy Robredo. Despite the loss, he cracked into the Top 20 for the first time in his career. In March, he beat Hewitt in the final at Las Vegas for his fifth ATP tour title. At the first AMS event of the year, Indian Wells, James Blake defeated Robredo in the third round and world No. 2 Nadal in the semifinals to reach his first career ATP Masters Series singles final. He would lose in the final to Roger Federer, but by reaching the finals of that event, Blake became the first African-American man since Arthur Ashe to reach the world's top 10. On clay, Blake defeated former world No. 1 Carlos Moya in the first round at AMS Hamburg, and then lost to Mario Ancic in the third round. At the French Open, he took down rising Spaniard Nicolas Almagro in four sets in the second round, to become the last remaining American man at the French. However, in the next round, he was beaten by Frenchman Gael Monfils in five sets.
To start the grass court season, he made what many considered to be a surprising run at the Stella Artois Championships, reaching the finals, defeating Andy Roddick in the semifinal. He lost to Lleyton Hewitt in the final. At Wimbledon, James Blake progressed to the third round, but lost to Max Mirnyi in five sets. Blake's first tournament after Wimbledon was at the International Series event at Indianapolis, and he went on to win the singles title by defeating Andy Roddick (for the second time in 2006) in the final. Just by reaching the Indy final, Blake earned enough points to be ranked No. 5 in the world. He also lost in the third round to Marat Safin in Washington D.C., and in the first round in New Haven to Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo. Blake didn't fare so well in the summer's biggest tournaments, losing in the second round to the eventual finalist in both of the summer ATP Masters Series events. At AMS Canada, he fell to Richard Gasquet (who would reach the final that week before losing to Roger Federer), and at AMS Cincinnati he lost to Juan Carlos Ferrero (who lost in the final to Andy Roddick). At the U.S. Open, James Blake reached the quarterfinals where he lost to top seed and defending champion Roger Federer. In that match, Blake managed to win his first set against Federer, winning the third set in a tiebreaker (119). In his debut appearance at the Thailand Open in Bangkok, Blake won his seventh singles title, defeating Jarkko Nieminen in the quarterfinal, Marat Safin in the semifinal, and Ivan Ljubicic for the first time in the final. Just two weeks later, Blake won his fifth title of 2006, successfully defending his 2005 title in Stockholm, by defeating Jarkko Nieminen in the final. For the first time in his career, Blake qualified for the Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai. James Blake went 21 in the Gold Group, defeating world No. 2 Nadal and No. 3 Nikolay Davydenko, but losing, in an inconsequential match, against No. 6 Tommy Robredo. Blake qualified for the semifinals, where he steamrolled defending champion David Nalbandian, 64, 61. He went on to the final against Federer, but lost the match in three sets. Blake finished 2006 at a career-high World Number 4, and also finished the year as the highest-ranked American tennis player. 2007 2007 prepared a great start for Blake, who collected his first title of the year at the Sydney International for second consecutive time. However, he then suffered a disappointing loss in the Round of 16 at the Australian Open, losing to tenth seed and eventual finalist Fernando Gonzalez 75, 64, 76 (4). He followed that up with a loss to Tomas Berdych in Davis Cup play and a second round loss in the SAP Open (San Jose) to #103 ranked Ivo Karlovic. At the 2007 Tennis Channel Open in Las Vegas, as the defending champion, he was involved with a deep controversy. It was one of the several tournaments experimenting with the new round robin format , and Blake had lost his first match to Evgeny Korolev. Korolev lost his other match to Juan Martin Del Potro. In order for James Blake to advance to the quarters, he had to defeat Del Potro in straight sets while losing five games or less. This would result in a three-way tie, with Blake losing the fewest games. With Blake leading 61 31, Del Potro retired. This eliminated Del Potro from the three-way tie as he failed to complete one of his matches. Korolev then moved on to the next round, breaking the tie because he had defeated Blake in their match. That caused a big uproar among fans, James Blake, and commentators, as they felt James Blake deserved to advance. After a press conference of many hours, the ATP, led by Etienne de Villiers, decided that, since Blake would have met the guidelines the way the match was going, and since neither player knew the consequences of retiring (Del Potro said he would have finished the match had he known), Blake would have advanced anyway. They overruled the tournament guidelines, giving Blake a place in the quarterfinals. The following morning, De Villiers reversed his reversal deeming that it was unfair to Korolev as you shouldn't change the rules in mid-tournament, regardless of what happened. As a result, Korolev re-advanced to the quarterfinals, sending Blake to Indian Wells without a 3rd consecutive title defense. Shortly after this incident, the ATP decided to cancel the round robin format, reverting any tournaments planning a round robin draw to the standard single-elimination draw. Roland Garros 2007 was a disappointment for James Blake, losing in the first round to Ivo Karlovic 46 64 75 75. Blake was one of nine American men to lose in the first round of Roland Garros. This was the first time in the open era where an American had not made it into a Grand Slam second round. In Wimbledon 2007, James reached the third round, matching his best showing there (2006), but was unable to get past former World Number 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero, losing 36, 63, 63, 76. During the summer hardcourt season, he advanced to his second career ATP Masters Series event and won a singles title. At AMS Cincinnati, he beat Alejandro Falla, Nicolas Kiefer, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Sam Querrey and Nikolay Davydenko en route to the final before falling to Roger Federer. He won the singles title at Penn Pilot in New Haven,CT, and started the North American hardcourt season by reaching the finals at Los Angeles, losing to Radek Stepanek in three sets, 76, 57, 62 after having three set points in the first set. In the second round of the 2007 U.S. Open, he won his first career five-set match against Fabrice Santoro, whom he defeated 64, 36, 62, 46, 64. James Blake made it to the fourth round, where he lost to No. 10 Tommy Haas in five sets, 46, 64, 36, 60, 76(4), despite having match points in the fifth set.
James Blake also participated in Madrid and Basel. In Madrid, he fell to former top ten star Mario Ancic in the second round. In Basel, he fell in the second round to Ivo Karlovic. However, Blake teamed with former number one doubles player Mark Knowles of the Bahamas to make the final. In the first round, he and Knowles upset U.S. Open champions Simon Aspelin and Julian Knowle in three sets. In the semifinals, the team bore match points twelve times, and finally defeated Paul Hanley and Kevin Ullyett, the second seeds, 75 67 with thirteen needed match points. Their luck, however, was halted by top seeds and top ranked Bob and Mike Bryan, who are Blake's Davis Cup teammates. James Blake and Knowles lost 61 61. After the match, James quoted: "'Yes, they played as well I have seen them play in a while. Its tough. I have seen them do it to a lot of guys in Davis Cup from the sidelines and know how little fun it is to face them. Thats the reason why they are the best doubles team in the world right now. [At the start of the week] I told Mark I had not won a lot of doubles matches this year, so I was glad to have him get me through a couple of wins. I had a great time and a lot of fun. Getting a chance to play with one of the best doubles players, really ever, was exciting for me. I learned plenty and hopefully well be better next time.'" Blake lost in the third round of Paris to Richard Gasquet and thus finished outside the top eight players, losing his chance to defend the points he gained as finalist in the 2006 Tennis Masters Cup. James Blake won his match in the 2007 Davis Cup finals against Mikhail Youzhny, 63, 76, 67, 76 (and also against Dmitry Tursunov). Andy Roddick won his match versus Tursunov and Bob and Mike Bryan won the doubles rubber over Igor Andreev and Nikolay Davydenko, sealing the Davis Cup win for the United States. 2008 James Blake began 2008 hoping to win his third consecutive Medibank International title. However, the defending champion bowed out of the tournament in the first round, losing to French veteran Fabrice Santoro (76, 62). The third seed was said to be "uncharacteristic" in reference to his frustration. At the Australian Open, Blake defeated his first round opponent, Chilean Nicolas Massu. He then defeated compatriot Michael Russell (63 62 62). In the third round, he fought back from two sets down to best French veteran Sebastien Grosjean, who had beaten him in each of their three previous meetings. In the fourth round, James Blake beat Marin Cilic in three sets to advance to the quarterfinals, his best showing yet down under. In the quarterfinal, James Blake faced world No. 1 Roger Federer, and fell in straight sets, 75, 76 ( 75) 64. Although out of the Australian Open, Blake's ranking jumped back into the Top 10 to No. 9 following his best performance down under yet. In Davis Cup, the USA played Austria on clay. James defeated Stefan Koubek in four sets (57, 75, 62, 62). Despite being down 25 in the second set, James turned things around, helped in part by unforced errors by Koubek. In Delray Beach, James made it to the final for the second consecutive year, but fell to No. 244 Kei Nishikori in three sets in the final. In San Jose, he rebounded from that loss by defeating compatriot Sam Warburg in straight sets in the first round and Jesse Levine in straight sets in the second round. However, he lost to Robby Ginepri on the following round. At the 2008 Pacific Life Open, James Blake, the ninth seed, received a "bye" in the first round, before defeating Marc Gicquel 63, 67 (5), 61 in the second round. In the third round, Blake beat former world number one Carlos Moyΰ 63, 64. He then defeated Richard Gasquet in the fourth round in straight sets 64, 62, before losing to Rafael Nadal in the quarter finals 75, 36, 63. At the 2008 Miami Masters, Blake reached the quarterfinals, but again lost to Rafael Nadal in three sets. The score was 63, 36, 16. In Davis Cup, Team USA played France. Unfortunately for France, they were missing two of their best players, Richard Gasquet and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga due to injuries. Gasquet had blisters on his right hand and a sore knee, and Tsonga had an ankle injury. So Michael Llodra and Paul-Henri Mathieu were the players playing singles for France. After Andy Roddick defeated Llodra, James Blake would play Mathieu. James won in a three-hour, 48-minute, five-set match against the Frenchman, 76, 67, 63, 36, 75. He had to save two match points to defeat the number 12 Mathieu. Blake then started the clay court season at the River Oaks International tournament in Houston, Texas. He defeated Nishikori in the first round (64, 64), 15-year-old Ryan Harrison in the second round, No. 5 seed Agustin Calleri of Argentina in the quarters, and Oscar Hernandez of Spain in the semifinals (63, 76). In his second ATP final of the year and his first career clay-court final, Blake fell to Spaniard Marcel Granollers Pujol, 46, 61, 57. James received a wild card to play in the clay tournament in Barcelona, Spain. However, he lost in the first round to German Denis Gremelmayr in straight sets. Looking for a better performance on clay, James Blake played in the Master Series tournament in Rome. He received a bye in the first round. In the second round, he faced Italian hope Andreas Seppi. James won in three sets 76, 36, 61. In the third round, he faced Spaniard Fernando Verdasco. He won in three sets 57, 75, 62. At the French, he made it to the second round before being defeated by Ernests Gulbis. Playing Style Blake adopts an offensive baseline strategy which he achieves through his aggressive powerful forehands that are deep and flat. He undoubtedly possesses one of the strongest forehands on the tour. He is also an excellent returner of serve, he makes use of compact swings to aggressively return, reminiscent of Andre Agassi . His forehands, due to being flat and deep, offer little room for error when compared to high margin shots which employ topspin. Although, James Blake can incorporate an all-court playing style by aiming his shots down the lines, or moving an opponent from side to side and proceeding to finish the point at the net by overhead or volley. Blake is also noted for his exceptional court coverage, speed, and athleticism. He is noted for having incredible foot speed but lacking in footwork. His backhand has improved tremendously over the course of his career, what used to be considered a weakness has now become a powerful and reliable shot; He occasionally employs the slice backhand. Blake's style of play is best suited for hard courts as his flat shots tend to stay low and move quickly across the court; this approach is relatively ineffective on clay courts. Apart from winning hard court tournaments, James Blake has made some considerable runs to the finals of a few grass tournaments. Equipment Blake worked with Prince to create a new racquet featuring Prince's O3 technology. The endeavor resulted in the Prince O3 Hybrid Tour. However, Blake did not feel comfortable with this racquet, or with the O3 technology. Blake ended his relationship with Prince. James Blake switched to the Dunlop Aerogel 2Hundred for Wimbledon which is characterized by its low power, 95 square inch head size, and a dense 18 x 20 string pattern. Blake said, "The new Aerogel racquet technology provides several frame specifications that will suit my game well and give me the confidence to know that I can take my career to new heights." His tennis racquet is strung with Luxilon Big Banger Alu Power 16L String at a relatively high tension (60 + pounds). The high tension and dense string pattern are thought to help provide better control for his powerful strokes. His clothing sponsor is Nike, and James Blake frequently wears the power sleeveless tops which are identical to Rafael Nadal's and Carlos Moya's. His shoes are Nike Air Max Breathe Cage II. Career Highlights
Personal life Away from tennis, James Blake also enjoys golf, basketball, and Flaking. He is a big fan of the New York Mets. Blake was featured on Bravo's second edition of Celebrity Poker Showdown, but got 2nd after losing to Maura Tierney. Blake appeared in People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive issue. He once dated Jennifer Scholle and until recently, was dating US Women's Soccer Player Heather Mitts. James Blake is also good friends with singer/songwriter John Mayer, who also attended Fairfield High School. When Blake was invited by Virginia's Anthem Insurance to do a cancer charity game honoring his late father, he invited John Mayer, Andy Roddick and Gavin DeGraw to perform. James has appeared on show called No Strings on the Tennis Channel where he said that he has not so great looking feet.
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