James Blake had just the mentality he needed on Tuesday night against Alexander Peya.
The second-seeded American did what he could to grind out a 7-5, 6-4 opening round victory at the Countrywide Classic, a tournament that has embraced Blake as its main star.
Blake knows better than to let his status as the tournament’s marquee player overshadow his rigid mind-set coming into each match.
“All I can do is come here and do my best,” Blake said. “If I put the pressure that I have to carry the tournament, I’m going to get too tense. I’m not going to be able to go for the shots.”
The positive outlook, though not visible in a match that had Blake frustrated at several points, allowed him to win some of the bigger points in the crucial junctions of his first round match at center court.
Facing his only break point of the match in the second set, Blake gathered himself and hit three consecutive serves that left Peya in a daze.
The match drew a far larger crowd than Monday’s headline match between Marat Safin and Chris Guccione. Two of Blake’s friends, Minnesota Timberwolves power forward Kevin Garnett and fellow tennis player Serena Williams, were in attendance.
“I knew they were coming out, and it was fun to see them,” Blake said after the match. “They waited for me afterward, and they were happy to see me win.”
After meeting Garnett through the NBA star’s agent, the pair became close friends.
Blake views his relationships with fellow athletes as mutually beneficial, as both parties learn and begin to appreciate other sports as well as their own.
“Having other friends in other sports is a great thing,” Blake said. “Hopefully it makes them more interested in tennis, and maybe (Garnett will) even tell a couple other basketball players to come watch some tennis.”
If Blake has his way, he will be playing in front of a crowd that embraces him on Thursday night against Paul Goldstein, a match Blake won’t be taking lightly.
“I know he’s dangerous,” the second seed said of Goldstein. “If I’m just a little off, he can beat me really easily.”
Blake has a target on his back, now the top-ranked player in the field after Zack Fleishman upset Fernando Gonzalez, and the New York native expects the best from his opponents.
Not only will he be feeling the pressure from whoever stands across the net from him, but from the fans as well, who have high expectations of the world’s No. 9 player.
“As long as I prepare as well as I can, come in here without losing focus by going out too late at night, or just not really being in the right frame of mind, that’s my commitment to the tournament,” he said.
And for Blake, there is no better place than on the hard courts of the United States to rise up to the challenge and play some of his best tennis.
“I just feel like I can play my game, and I’m so much more comfortable on these courts,” he said.
If he does suffer a blow in the first of five tune-up tournaments he will play before the US Open, he will not hang his head for long, as his new mind-set and philosophy toward the game he loves has changed as he has matured.
“If I lose, it’s because my best wasn’t good enough on that day,” Blake said. “I can’t put that burden on myself that it’s the end of the tournament itself if I don’t win it.”