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Bouncing Back Watching James Blake's life unfold is, in many ways, like watching a great tennis match. It's full of wild swings, big moments - and everything happens suddenly. Yet, one match on a slick court on May 6, 2004, reached a new kind of extreme. It was raining in Rome. But he needed to practice. Blake - then 24, a tennis prodigy who had overcome scoliosis to be hyped as the next Arthur Ashe, play for Harvard University, and model in GQ - was out with fellow player Robby Ginepri after both men lost in the first round of the Italian Open. Ginepri hit a short shot just over the net that forced Blake to race in with the speed that had always been his best weapon. But instead of gracefully touching the ball back, Blake slipped on the wet clay court and slammed headfirst into a metal net post. Only by a matter of inches did he avoid snapping his neck and being permanently paralyzed. Suffering from a fractured vertebra, Blake went home to Fairfield, Connecticut, to recover. But life was about to hit him another hard serve. In July, his father, Thomas - who had taught him as a youngster to play at the Harlem Tennis Center when the family lived in Yonkers, New York - died of cancer. Then, while working to return to the tennis circuit where he'd once been ranked No. 22 in the world, Blake came down with shingles, a viral infection of the nerves that blurred his vision and delayed his comeback once again. Only in January did he finally get back to competition. Earlier this month, he joined the Boston Lobsters for their first season on the World Tennis Tour at Harvard's Bright Arena, where in 1998 he'd played as the country's top-ranked college man. Now 25, James Blake is at a pivotal moment. He's just made it through a very rough year and as a tennis player has yet to reach the potential so many others saw in him. "I care as much as ever," Blake said by telephone in May from Paris, where he had won his first-round match in the French Open. "But I don't let losing a match ruin my day and keep me down, the way it used to. If I get angry, I try not to take it out on umpires like I used to. I want to be the best I can be, but now I know there's life after tennis." Carlos Fleming, his longtime agent, says Blake realizes how lucky he is. "He couldn't blink last fall, and now he's out playing. When he started high school, he was 5 feet tall and had scoliosis. He was the kid with the back brace that other kids gave a hard time." Blake, now 6 feet 1, is no longer troubled by scoliosis, though the impact it had on his life has been undeniable. In addition to having taught clinics in the Harlem Junior Tennis Program, where he (and his older brother, Thomas) first played, he has given $10,000 to the Shriners Hospital in Springfield, where he was treated for the disfiguring condition and where he has spent time visiting patients. Blake is also among the most-liked tennis players on the professional tour. "There is no more gracious player that I've ever met," says Mark Stenning, CEO of the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island. "He's someone that I want my kids to look up to as an athlete and as a person." His nice-guy image was particularly visible as he made his way onto tennis's big stage at the 2001 US Open, when Blake, then ranked 95th in the world, was beating the heavily favored, fourth-seeded Australian player Lleyton Hewitt. After a disputed call, Hewitt pointed at the African-American linesman and said, "Look at him. Look at him, and you tell me what the similarity is. Just get him off the court." The remark was quickly interpreted as being racially motivated - that Hewitt was implying the black linesman was likely to favor a black player, an assertion that Hewitt later denied. But Blake, instead of adding to the fray that followed the match (Hewitt came back to win), instead was a voice of calm, saying he didn't believe Hewitt made a racist remark and that unfortunate things sometimes are said in the heat of competition. Race has always been a factor in Blake's career. He was never just James Blake, tennis star. He was always James Blake, the next great African-American tennis player, or the heir to Arthur Ashe, or the inspiration for poor African-American kids looking for a sport and a hero. Instead of frustrating or angering him, the role became something he embraces at a time when the best-known African-American tennis stars are Venus and Serena Williams, and the United States Tennis Association struggles to attract and support black stars. The sport has been good to Blake - he's earned almost $2 million in a six-year career. The last year, of course, was not a high point. Blake missed tournaments and slipped in the rankings, and earlier this year was barely in the top 200. He toiled away on the decidedly un-glamorous Challenger circuit (it's a little like a Red Sox starter playing Double A ball), winning three tournaments in a row, and fought to earn a spot in the French Open, where he lost in the second round in a tough five-set match. He got into Wimbledon, where he lost in the first round, and is back in the States this summer to play some tournaments on his best surface - hard courts - and to see if he can survive a few rounds at the US Open. "There are some things you can't control," Blake says. It's a lesson he's learned over and over. But his rough year has taught him one thing about luck: "You could come up against [top-ranked Roger] Federer five weeks in a row. All I can think about is winning the next point."
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