ATP Tennis - James Blake Loses in the First Round and is out of Wimbledon

The American and ATP No. 17th, James Blake, was unable to win for the third straight time in Grand Slam tournaments, losing against the 50th ATP-ranked, Italian Andreas Seppi, 7-5, 6-4, 7-6(5), this past Monday.

Blake had beaten the Italian in their last two meetings, but for some reason he couldn’t do it this time at Wimbledon. Moreover, the American also lost in the first round of this year‘s French Open, after exiting in the fourth round of the Australian Open back in January.

Nevertheless, Blake thought he was ready for Wimbledon since he has trained hard and his fitness was extremely well, but maybe his confidence was the problem.

Since the beginning Blake started making too many errors, which gave Seppi an advantage in the first set by winning it 7-5.  During the second set, Blake expected to take advantage of his best shot, the forehand, but Seppi managed to neutralize it forcing Blake into exchange backhands and at the end the Italian won the second set as well, 6-4.

In the third set, Blake though he had chances to get back into the match when he held one set point with a lead of 6-5, but he missed a forehand that went too long and tied the set. Blake then missed a 5-0 lead in the tiebreaker when the Italian went into a 7-0 run to win the set and the match.

At the end of the match, the American expressed his frustration for his bad performance and the disappointment of not getting further in Wimbledon. 

"I still feel like I can play with anyone in the world, but it's just, for some reason lately, it's been very inconsistent. I've been doing all the training. I've been doing all the conditioning. I'm fit as I've been. I just haven't been as confident, I guess.  But I still have the ability. It's just frustrating, because it's happening at big tournaments where I'm having my not-so-good performances," stated the former world No.4.

On the other hand, the Italian Andreas Seppi stated his satisfaction on his performance especially because he played more aggressively than usual on Blake’s serve, which used to be one of his weaknesses.  Seppi also said that he was a little happier when he found out that his opponent would be Blake, instead of Juan Martin Del Potro, as it was originally planned but changed after the bracket was modified due to Nadal’s withdraw. According to Seppi, Del Potro has a very strong serve and he considered he would have a better chance with Blake, which he proved right on Monday.

Now after this loss, James Blake expects to regain his confidence and play better in the following tournaments since he knows in spite of his age, he still can compete within the top 10 players of the ATP rankings. Whereas for Andreas Seppi, this win increases his confidence and grows his expectations to advance in the tournament.

The next opponent of the Italian will be the French Marc Gicquel and the game will be played on June 24th.