“He helped me grow up,” Blake says.
“It wasn’t just about being a better ten-
nis player but a better person.”
ESPN commentator Patrick McEnroe,
who serves as the U.S. Davis Cup team
captain and for whom Blake played from
2001 to 2009, says Blake is always accept-
ing of whatever role he’s assigned—
whether he’s starting or sitting on the
bench. He also impressively bounces
back from a bad match, quickly.
In 2002, for instance, Blake lost his
first Davis Cup singles match in France.
McEnroe went to see him in the training room while he was getting iced
down, and Blake was hard on himself.
McEnroe grew concerned. There was
an important doubles match with Todd
Martin the next day. Are you going to be
ready, James? Blake nodded with assurance. During the doubles match, he was
the best player on the court, McEnroe
recalls, winning in five sets.
“James is just a great competitor,
and a great guy, too,” says McEnroe,
who oversees the U.S. Tennis Asso-
ciation’s elite player development
program. “He literally says thank you
every time a ball boy gets him a ball,
no matter how intense the match is or
how tired he is. No other tennis player I
know does that.”
More success followed. Blake won
the USTA Waikoloa Challenger in
Hawaii in 2002, then his first ATP Tour
title and ATP Masters Series title. He
discovered he could beat top players
like Agassi and give someone like Lley-
ton Hewitt a run for his money, losing
in five sets to him at the U.S. Open that
same year.
Hard Road to Recovery
Sleepless nights followed, then the
shingles, which put his career on hold
until he could make a comeback. It
didn’t come quickly, but by 2006 Blake
was ranked No. 4 in the world, top among
all U. S. players. Then, in 2007, he helped
lead the Davis Cup team to a championship over Russia before a sold-out crowd.
His comeback is a testimony to
extraordinary mental and emotional
toughness, says Jim Fannin, a sports
performance consultant who has
worked with baseball stars Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez as well as U.S.
Open and Wimbledon doubles champion Peter Fleming. People generally
think that athletes have a super ability
to rebound from anything, but that’s not
necessarily the case.
“When man is at his worst, it can bring
out the best,” says Fannin, who also is
In keeping with his
approach to life, James
Blake is seeking to create a wealth of good from
his greatest loss. He has
established a lasting tribute to his late father in the
form of a foundation, the
Thomas Blake Sr. Memorial Research Fund, which
is dedicated to raising
money for cancer research.
Through exhibition play
and merchandise sales,
Blake seeks to raise
$1 million.
If any role model other
than his father drives him
to make the foundation a
success, it is tennis legend
Paying Tribute
Arthur Ashe. Blake was 3
years old when his parents took him to see Ashe
speak in Harlem. Since
then, Blake has read everything he can about Ashe,
to find out how he excelled
as a tennis player and a
global humanitarian.
“The more I’ve learned
about him, the more
impressed I’ve become,”
Blake says. “He was even
greater than I realized.
When he was on top of the
tennis world and athletes
weren’t known for speak-
ing out, he criticized apart-
heid in South Africa.”
After Ashe was stricken
with AIDS, the disease that
would eventually kill him,
Blake grew even more
impressed with the way
Ashe handled his fate.
