James Blake: from Federer’s Olympics nightmare to bestseller author

James Blake, the former world number 4 who denied Roger Federer an Olympic medal, went through some dark times when his father died, but he overcame everything after he found out what true friendship is and how relieving writing a book can be.

Blake confessed, in a Behind the Racquet interview, that he used to keep almost all his feelings inside and that had a major impact on his health, especially when his father passed away.

“I'm not generally someone who’s extremely expressive, my wife will tell you that […] When my dad passed, having my friends, my mom still around and my brother there, was so instrumental. My whole family wanted to pick me up and just let me know it's okay. I was never someone that was a big crier, or truly emotional, but they let me know it was okay to be emotional in times like this. I then became physically sick. The stress of my dad passing away led to the development of symptoms that affected my facial nerves [...] I also wasn’t sleeping...”, said Blake for BTR.

All of that stress had big repercussions for James, who was forced to take a break from tennis at a crucial point in his career.

“All of this kept me off tour for quite a while, and I couldn’t be more upset. I was 24 years old and I felt like this is my time to play some really great tennis and continue improving but it ended up being a time where I was off tour for eight months”

However, contrary to his expectations, those eight months were like a breath of fresh air for the American tennis player.

“Since I was forced to be home with my friends, I became a better person and a better friend. I began to realize how much life there was outside of tennis after spending time with friends that I had known since middle school [...] I've got people that care about me whether I win or lose a tennis match, and that made the rest of my life better, not just my tennis career.”, Blake admitted.

Besides the help from his friends, James got past the hard times by turning to an old passion of his — writing. After getting past some stumbling blocks, Blake started to write his book “Breaking Back: How I Lost Everything and Won Back My Life”, which made it into the New York Times Bestseller list.

“Once I got back on tour the publishing company came back to me with a lot of interest. They asked me if I was still thinking about sharing my story. They said, ‘Why don't you put pen to paper and start writing your story.’ I worked with another writer, Andrew Friedman, who was with me for around six months to a year [...] We started and just kept talking and talking and talking, and going through it all. Just working on the writing processes. It made it that everything I was feeling started coming out.”

In 2005, after his return on the tour, Blake received the Comeback Player of the Year award and went on to reach the final of the 2006 Tennis Masters Cup, the semifinals of the Beijing Olympics — where he eliminated Federer in the quarter-finals — and to win the 2007 Davis Cup with his American teammates.

“With a sport like tennis, it's really important to shed light on these issues because you’re out there alone. You're an individual and the pressure is on you the entire time. I hope people begin to realize that we're human beings, as well as athletes, and there are issues we deal with like everyone else. People forget we aren’t robots. People see this fantasy world and guess that everything is kind of perfect. There are true struggles, that each and every player deal with that are far more important than winning or losing.”, Blake concluded the interview.

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/35bT4Wl