GO FOR 2

James Blake Wonders What Happened..? Photo Courtesy of Flickr.com/mandj98 (Creative Commons Licensed)

The most well recognized, greatest tennis event in existence kicked off this week at Wimbledon. The story most people are focusing on is the fact that the defending champion, Rafael Nadal, is out with knee tendonitis. This means that Roger Federer is under a tremendous amount of pressure to win, since there isn’t really any quality competition for him now (Andy Murray probably has something to say about that).

But something worth focusing on is the continuing collapse of James Blake. Blake has now lost three Grand Slam matches in a row, and has gone out in the first round of the last two Grand Slams (Wimbledon and the French Open). Blake came into this tournament seeded 17th , which makes since given that it’s also his current ATP rank.

Now, this is a guy who has been ranked 4th in the world only 3 years ago. He’s also accustomed to being a top 10 seed at majors prior to this year. On top of that, Blake tends to play better on grass than on clay (4-2 on grass, 6-5 on clay in 2009), making Wimbledon a good tournament for him.

Well, apparently not because Andreas Seppi dropped Blake in straight sets and ended his tournament early. Blake tried to sounds optimistic about his recent woes, saying:

“I still feel like I can play with anyone in the world, but it’s just for some reason lately it has been very inconsistent”

‘Lately’ and ‘Inconsistent’ are both massive understatements, James, sorry. I’ve always liked Blake better than Roddick, and I really hope he gets his game back together. However, the guy turns 30 at the end of this year, and has only made one quarterfinal at a major in the last 3 years.

We’ll see what happens to Blake in the future, as for Wimbledon, Andy Roddick is the only American hope now (So we clearly won’t have a player in the quarters – come on, even Andy Roddick knows Andy Roddick doesn’t stand a chance).