Competing in the
2000 Hopman Cup
in Perth, Austrialia
James Blake has always considered
himself a lucky man. After struggling
with scoliosis throughout his teenage years, he concluded that life had
a;orded him far more blessings than
burdens. When he broke his neck in
May 2004 on a tennis court, he gained a
greater understanding of what mattered
most to him, especially his relationship
with his father, who would die just six
weeks after the injury. During this same
period, a sudden and debilitating case of
shingles literally stole the smile o; the
face of this a;able young man. But he
continued to discover light where others
would find only darkness.
“I already went through dealing with
a broken back,” says Blake, 30, who as of
press time is ranked 83rd in the world.
“But the shingles were far more pain-
ful to deal with. I ended up back in the
hospital again. I couldn’t bring myself
to call my mom and tell her, because of
everything she had been dealing with. So
I thought, ‘This must be happening for
a reason. Maybe it’s a way of telling me
that I shouldn’t go back to playing tennis
right now, that my family needs me.’
“So I stayed home instead of going
back out on the tennis tour,” he says.
“I caught up on what was going on in the
lives of friends who I grew up with. As
I got healthier, I learned to appreciate
more than ever the ability to jog, because
at one point I couldn’t even stand up
without losing my sense of equilibrium,
as if I was drunk.
Hometown Favorite
Today, Blake has much to smile about.
A knee injury sidelined him this spring,
but as of press time for this article he was
healthy and planned to rejoin the tour
just before Wimbledon. He is among the
world’s top tennis players and lives a life
of celebrity bliss, minus any notable
scandals. He owns his own clothing
line, is often linked to beautiful, famous
women and counts singer John Mayer
as one of his closest friends. Raised in
Yonkers, N. Y., until his family moved to
Fairfield, Conn., Blake is now primed
to come home and make a statement
when the U.S. Open kicks o; at Flushing
Meadows in August.
The Open represents a critical crossroads for Blake. Others would have been
destroyed by the crush of events—injury,
personal loss and a serious illness—that
