STEPPING UP

James Blake has been a star in Harlem, at Harvard, and on America’s Davis Cup team. How far can his classic style of play take him on the ATP tour?

by Peter Bodo

From the APRIL 2002 issue of TENNIS Magazine

A feeling of nostalgia had been growing in 22-year-old James Blake since early in the morning, when he and his brother, Tom Jr., 25, climbed into the family car with their parents, Tom and Betty. They were leaving leafy, middle-class Fairfield, Conn.—where the Blakes had moved from Yonkers, N.Y., more than a decade ago—and heading back to Harlem, to East 143rd St., to the place known by regulars like the Blakes as “the Armory.”

James, racquet bag slung over his shoulder, chin buried in the fur collar of his coat to ward off the frigid December wind blowing in off the East River, slipped through a narrow door marked Harlem Tennis Center (HTC) in a red-brick building that occupies almost an entire city block.

It was just as Blake remembered: the dry, musty air, the diffuse light filtering through grimy windows near the ceiling, the institutional, pistachio-green walls. In the makeshift lounge, two elderly black men in tennis whites were locked in their ritual Saturday-morning chess match. On the wall behind them were handwritten inspirational signs and a Wilson poster featuring Tracy Austin back in her flyaway ponytail days.

The mellow strains of Jazz 88 saturated the air. At various times, the Armory has been a National Guard facility, a tennis club, and a city-run homeless shelter. Blake has seen several of these incarnations, having been a fixture here since he was 3 years old, when he and Tom Jr. played in the Harlem Junior Tennis Program (HJTP), a league for local minority kids that volunteers like Tom Sr. and Betty Blake help run.

A large man strolled James’ way. “Hello, Mr. Brown,” Blake said, trying to suppress an ear-to-ear grin. “How you do—”

“Why you little piece of s---,” said Dante Brown, the executive director of HJTP. “What do you want now?”

“Aw man, screw you,” Blake said. “You get them heavyweight support structures in your shoes yet?”

“Maybe I do,” Brown responded, “and I tell you what—I can still kick your butt with them.”

Brown and the young man he’d helped mold into a tennis player embraced.

This was a homecoming for Blake, his first since cracking the ATP’s Top 100 (he rose as high as No. 63 in January 2002). Later, the Blake brothers, along with pal John McEnroe, put on an exhibition and hosted a question-and-answer session during which James would tell the audience of a few hundred kids and their parents how he’d gotten into Harvard, and how he’d left after his sophomore year to join the pro tour. He’d talk about his 2001 breakout season and his brilliant Davis Cup debut, when he won both of his singles matches to assure victory over a team from India, thus sparing the U.S. the ignominy of falling out of the World Group.

What might prove more difficult to ex-plain to the wide-eyed children was how Blake catapulted into the public consciousness as the result of a match he’d lost (a mere second-rounder at that) at the 2001 U.S. Open to the eventual champion, Lleyton Hewitt. That five-set marathon was noteworthy for the quality of play, but also for the controversy stirred up when Hewitt, after being called for a pair of foot faults by a black linesman, screamed at the chair umpire, “Look at him [Blake], mate, and you tell me what the similarity is,” and demanded that the official be moved (he was).

Blake, whose father is African-American and whose mother is white, handled the potentially explosive situation with characteristic aplomb (he charitably accepted Hewitt’s absurd claim that there was nothing “racialistic” about his rant), winning the admiration of the fans and the media, who characterized Blake’s reaction as “Ashe-like.”

And they were right, perhaps more than they knew. For Blake, like the late Arthur Ashe, is a cool, clear-thinking realist who is, first and foremost, a tennis player. As he says: “I appreciate the credit the media gave me for the way I handled the Hewitt situation. Sure, I want to be a positive role model, but in the end, I felt that the level of tennis that day deserved attention, too. I want to make it onto SportsCenter solely for my tennis.”

It’s difficult to appreciate just who James Blake is without meeting his mother. Roughly 30 years ago, Betty was a junior-Olympic long jumper from Banbury, in Oxfordshire, England. Vestiges of a classic British peaches-and-cream complexion remain in the lean, pale face of the woman who now wears her soft brown hair in a no-frills pageboy.

“Nobody believes I’m [the boys’] mother,” she says, shrugging. Then she adds, echoing the words spewed out by Hewitt last September: “I mean, just look at us.”

(Indeed. Tom Jr. is a towering 6-foot-5, blessed with the same striking amber eyes as his 54-year-old father. James is a rangy 6-1, with a long torso, chestnut-colored eyes, and fine cheekbones set in a complexion as smooth as caramel. His hair, which he wears in a blow-out Afro, is tinged with a maternal legacy of red. The package is arresting; not surprisingly, Blake has parlayed his looks into a contract with IMG Models, an offshoot of the company that manages his tennis career.)

By the late 1960s, Betty had moved to America and come to live with her mother and sister in Yonkers. The tennis boom was in full swing. While serving in the Air Force, Tom Sr., along with a friend, Ray Pitts, picked up tennis. Both men also enjoyed reading, and it was while poring over the books of Herman Hesse, the pacifist author, that Blake, as a way of protesting the U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia, became a vegetarian. (Having run a vegetarian household for a quarter century, Betty says, “I think we’ve proven that being raised vegetarian doesn’t stunt your growth.”)

Fresh out of the service, Tom Sr. settled in Yonkers and embarked on a career as an account manager with 3M, the only organization other than the U.S. military for which he’s ever worked. He was hungry for tennis and frequented the public courts, where he quickly sized up the best player out there and took her for a hitting partner.

“At first, Betty was a lot better. She was the one who knew tennis,” he says. “But I caught up, and now I’m top dog in the house.” He pauses, before sheepishly adding, “Well, at least when neither boy is home.”

From the beginning, little James showed an affinity for the sport. As a toddler, he took a new toy, a Fisher-Price drag-along corn popper, and within minutes had un-screwed the handle and begun whacking tennis balls across the kitchen floor with it. The Blakes had a penchant for setting the bar high in every pursuit, tennis included, and that spurred James to succeed.

“The boys were so competitive, they had me tearing out my hair,” Betty says. “How often I used to breathe a silent prayer, ‘Please let James win . . .’ He cared so much. How can you be so competitive in a board game, or even a game of chance? I don’t know, but James was.”

It was about this time that Tom Sr. became a volunteer tennis teacher with HJTP, trundling the family off to the Armory every weekend. It wasn’t long before the boys got too good for the place, but they remained in the program, evolving into teachers and, occasionally, even tutors.

“It was about education more than tennis,” says James, noting that in order to participate, a child had to maintain a C average in school. “The program was about improving as an all-around human being, and part of that was becoming the kind of person who gives something back.”

James was 6 when the Blakes moved to Fairfield and began looking for a coach who could take the boys’ tennis to the next level. It was at the Tennis Club of Trumbull (Conn.) that they found Brian Barker, fresh off the pro tour. He still coaches James and Tom Jr., an aspiring, injury-plagued pro whose highest ranking to date is 410. At the time, though, the biggest hurdle facing James was his size: As a high school sophomore, he stood all of 5-foot-3.

“I was resigned to being the short one in the family,” says Blake, who then shot up between his junior and senior years. “Being unable to use my serve as a weapon, I learned to play small, scrapping out points, getting the ball back. And that helped me later on, because I feel like I can still create points and win matches without having to rely on a weapon.”

The other big hurdle for Blake to overcome was his temper, which by the time he was 13 was so volatile that Barker contemplated forcing him to sit out a full year. “I was a perfectionist,” James says. “One missed shot could put me in the most horrible mood.”

Blake’s temper was so foul that when Barker telephoned to check on Blake at junior tournaments, his first question was never “How’d you do in your match?” but “How did you act?” Eventually, Blake recalls, his parents convinced him of one thing: “If I was going to take this ‘it’s me against the world’ attitude, then that’s just what it would be. Nobody would cheer for me or want me to win.”

Once Blake grasped the implications of his behavior, his results improved. And while never classified as a can’t-miss prodigy à la Hewitt or Andre Agassi, he soon became a highly rated college prospect.

And not just any college.

The thing about harvard is, you don't go there thinking or expecting to be the Big Man on Campus," Blake says. "Hey, everyone in your class was probably a superstar oh his high-school sports team, voted most liekly to succees, or hugely talented. It's a great place to just put your head down and enjoy the experience."

Once again, Tom Jr. was the trailblazer, taking the lay of the land before encouraging his kid brotherto follow himi to the hallowed campus in Cambridge, Mass. "James is more the tortoise than the hare," says Tom Sr. "He has the younger brother's 'I'll catch up' mentality. His great talent is keeping his nose to the grindstone, doing whatever it takes- striving, working, struggling- to get to his goal."

When he entereed Harvard in 1997, James hoped to play number four singels, but coach Dave Fish tabbed him to play number two, right behind his brother. Just weeks into the season, James validated this faith in his game by vaulting to the collegiate ranking of four, eleven places ahead of Tom Jr. Blake admits the ranking went straight to his head, but says the consequent pressure taught him a lesson. "Suddenly guys were gunning for me. I was a target," he says. "They were hungrier, and I realized they were going to come at me extra hard, all the time. I could either fold or go at them that much harder."

Prior to the end of his freshman year, Blake had won the 18 and under US National Clay Court title and reached the final of the National 18s on the hard courts of Kalamazoo- and with his success, earned the nation's number one junior ranking. After his sophomore season, Blake was named the top college player in the country. It was decision time.

"My junior year would have been tougher, with some of our better guys graduating and the [Ivy] League in general getting weaker," he says. "It would have been a step down, so that's partly why I turned pro."

The game Blake has brought to the ATP tour is a stylish one. In an era dominated by one-dimensional, all-business baseliners, his strokes are semiclassical. He relies on versatility and placement rather than straight on power. He has a one handed backhand he can slice or roll, though his powerful forehand is his biger weapon, particularly when he scampers around his backhand to go inside-out. And the stick thin legs that look almost comical in baggy shorts get Blake around in a snap, enabling him to attack the net whenever he senses an opportunity. Some believe he has top 30 potential, if he can get his game working on all cylinders.

A big "if." Blake won his first pro tournament, a Futures event in Orlando, Fl, in 1999, and gradually played his way up the ladder. Granted a wild card into the US Open Blake hit Flushing Meadows with high expectations- and was manhandled in the first round by journeyman Chris Woodruff 6-2, 6-2, 6-1.

"When I started on tour," Blake says "I'd gotten complacent with my image as a hard worker. 'I thoughtt, these guys are just a little more experienced, a little stronger...no big deal, it'll fall into place. But the way Woodruff beat me made me get real. On top of everything else, these guys were working harder than me. Training-wise, it was time for me to step up."

Recently Jim Courier, the former world number one renowned for his work ethic, helped restructure Blake's training regimen. Others who've helped besides Barker, include the veteran Todd Martin and Patrick McEnroe, the Davis Cup captain for whom James performed so admirably last fall.

"James improved remarkably in 2001," McEnroe says. "It's hard when you come out of college, where you dominated, and realize that on the pro tour, youhave to go back to the drawing board and figure out what you need to work on. For James, that meant hitting his backhand more aggressively and recognizing that the more he goes for his shots, the better he is."

Tom Jr., assessing his brother's game, says, "James is fast, he's very competitive, and he has a big forehand. But one of his greatest abilities is to adjust to different games, to different surfaces."

This capacity to adjust has served Blake well, on and of fthe court. His actions during and after the controversial match with Hewitt are rooted in his biracial identity and date back to his childhood. Press Blake on the subject and he'll recount an incident that took place during his junior days, when the hopes and aspirations of parents often bring out the worst in them.

On this one occasion, the whhite father of a rival of James' said to Betty, "I feel sorry for your son, being the product of a biracial marriage, because both races can hate him."

At first, betty was nonplussed. But James recalls her recovering quickly. "That's not the way I see it," she said to the man. "To me, being biracial means you can be embraced by both groups."

Says James: "I always lokoed at it Mom's way. Because of that, I've always felt comfortable socially."

And it shows.