USO 2012: James Blake

Time moves on fast on a train called tennis tournament, and before today's sensations, upsets and retirement announcements completely pile on tons of overnight dust on yesterday, here's just a little mention of Blake's last night's match.

Nobody took Blake seriously before the start of this USO, possibly not even himself. I was surprised to even see his name pop in on tennis pages in the last few weeks. They weren't that encouraging, either: three first round exits prior to USO.

Blake won his first match in 4 sets beating Lacko; I watched a few points, admired the smoothness of Lacko's forehand and moved on to another match.

Then came round 2 against Granollers: again, I had a peek and remained riveted to the end of the match, for there was only one forehand to behold and that one was not Granollers'.

It was one of those matches you put a "special" sticker on it before placing in carefully on the vintage shelf of your memory: the 100%, uncompromising aggression with so much fire and heart in every shot.
Thrilling and exciting, like one long bated breath. One after the other, he kept charging, venturing into that crazy land of the unkown called the tennis net.

If ever I saw trouncing, that's what Granollers received last night: he was befuddled, pegged back and reduced to a terribly average, percentage, bland baseline existence. The strange straining grunting did not help, either.

James Blake may not be the slam winning, lime-light stealing retirement announcing Andy Roddick (isn't playing second fiddle the story of Blake's life?), in fact, he is the opposite: a true gentleman and someone who played the game beautifully, purposefull and mightily, the old school in every meaning of the word.

It doesn't matter that he probably won't be playing like that in his next match. Masterpieces are not produced every day, after all.


To cap it all, there are NO Youtube clips of the match available. Still, a link to his full interview is better than nothing:
http://www.usopen.org/en_US/interactive/video/index.html?promo=subnav&category=press

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBYFnwUJP_8

To a wonderful performance and a true treat for all tennis fans, James Blake

P.S.
Raonic next. May the flight last!

I saw 2-3 games of his in the 2nd or 3rd set (I forgot) and he was playing as well as ever, I even saw a nice line painting at some point!

That was on the big screen broadcasting the Armstrong stadium while I was waiting for the doors of the Ashe stadium to open for their night session...

Btw, you are right nitb it looked much better than Federer's match but there were some shots in the latter match too, most of them from Phau though, the guy has some skills (especially that he is only 5'9" and you could see the difference in size with Fed)

sphairistike wrote:That was on the big screen broadcasting the Armstrong stadium while I was waiting for the doors of the Ashe stadium to open for their night session...

Btw, you are right nitb it looked much better than Federer's match but there were some shots in the latter match too, most of them from Phau though, the guy has some skills (especially that he is only 5'9" and you could see the difference in size with Fed)

I knew Phau was good. I watched him this summer on clay, real tough cookie, just had no chance on faster courts last night.

So any first-hand observations from NY?
I heard you've got great weather there at the moment

Seeing Blake like he did last night was simply like the Heineken beer advert: "refreshing". Just pure tennis, trying to move your opponent, take time and hot winners.

A joy....but look at his post match interview! Clearly those jounos have not seen the match. It;s all about Andy and at the end the typical question asking James to assess the match...no well done, congrats or else!


http://www.usopen.org/en_US/news/interviews/2012-08-30/201208311346427384890.html

As Blake says it himself " one of his best match in years!!!"