Blake Finally Grinds Out a Win in Five-Set Match in a Late Affair

Aug 31, 02:10 AM

Current Headlines: NEW YORK _ Seven hours after his favorite baseball team completed its four-game debacle in Philadelphia, James Blake looked at the cunning counterpuncher across the net late Thursday night, and knew this much: He did not want to experience a Billy Wagner moment. Not here, on the Ashe Stadium court he thinks of as his tennis home.

Not in the second round, with a chance to win the first five-set match of his career.

Not against a relentless Frenchman in a shirt that looked like a pack of Life Savers, amid the first fully raucous late-night ambience of this year's Open.

It took nearly 3{ hours and enough wild, highlight-stuffed points to fill an entire DVD collection, but the sixth-seeded Blake, out of Yonkers and Fairfield, moved into third round of the Open. He did it with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 triumph over 34-year-old Fabrice Santoro, the Gallic gnat who would not go away.

The oldest man in the draw and a player who has tied Andre Agassi's record for most Grand Slam appearances (61) in the Open era, the 5-9 Santoro swings with both hands on both wings, a slicer, spinner and bunter with the biggest two-fisted bag of tricks in the game. He threw all of them at Blake, right to the end, when Blake fought off three of the biggest break points of his life to hold for 5-4, then closed it out on his first match point, with a wicked crosscourt backhand.

"There used to be a big monkey right there," Blake said referring to the five-set jinx in an on-court interview while pointing to his back. "And it's finally gone."

Blake pounded 83 winners, mostly with his jackhammer forehand, and showed his usual stunning quickness. But he converted just 49 percent of his first serves, had eight double faults and more than tripled (71 to 21) Santoro's unforced error total. He also got plenty tired of seeing Santoro's flicks and nicks, his artful lobs and impossible gets, even as Santoro's body cramped badly over the final two sets.

The shotmaking on display throughout was never more apparent than in the third game of the fifth set, which ended with Blake making a lefthanded forehand and Santoro, having already made a handful of great saves, knocking a lob a little long.

"You have to be ready for anything with Fabrice," said Blake, who has not lost to Santoro in four meetings. "I don't want to see him across the net from me anytime soon."

Said Santoro: "(I wanted) to give him some trouble. I think I did quite good."

Blake seemed poised to close it out in four after he broke back in the sixth game of the fourth, getting to 3-3 by winning a wondrous rally with a topspin lob that the 44th-ranked Santoro carried long with his backhand. Blake pumped his first, and the crowd of 23,733 roared, and made more noise still when Blake drilled a forehand winner to win Game 7 at 30.

But Santoro held for 4-4 _ Blake netted a makeable backhand that would have given him two break points _ and then broke Blake in Game 9 for 5-4. Santoro served it out with a winner, and the fifth set beckoned, and so did all the questions Blake has had to answer about why he had never prevailed in five sets in nine previous tries.

Santoro had his legs rubbed down on successive changeovers in the fifth, then called for the trainer again when he was serving at 15-15 in the sixth game. He had his legs iced and rubbed some more, drama building all the while.

A few minutes later, Santoro was a single point from serving for the match three times. Blake belted a glorious backhand volley winner to take care of the first, and used a backhand slice to escape the third. At 30-40 in Game 10, he hit a sharply angled backhand, and Santoro flung his racket at it, but missed, and then the 27-year-old Blake thrust his arms overhead and flung his blue headband into the crowd and drank up the late-night cheers. His Mets had lost, but he had won, in five. Working overtime never felt so good.

SEQUINED SEQUEL: Defending women's champion Maria Sharapova continued her prance through a toothless U.S. Open bracket in last night's early match at Ashe, pulverizing Australia's Casey Dellacqua.

"I'm trying to play solid from the first point to the end," the second-seeded Sharapova said after a 6-1, 6-0 victory that moves her into a third-round match against 18-year-old Pole Agnieszka Radwanska, the 30th seed.

It surely can't get any easier for the 20-year-old champ, who has lost all of two games in the first two rounds, scarcely breaking a sweat in her sequined red dress.

One of 10 Russian women to advance to the third round, Sharapova knows greater dramas lie ahead. The balky shoulder that has bothered her over the summer is better. It feels good to feel good, she said, and also to think about repeating.

"In the sport of tennis there's only one champion, and it's a pretty good feeling coming off a tournament and being that champion," she said.

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