James Blake ’00 didn’t have a chance to react before it ended.

Down 6-2 in a fifth-set tiebreaker, Blake walked to return the ball as he had thousands of times. Settling into a crouch, Blake stared down his opponent—the 6’10” Ivo Karlovic. Next to the Croat, Blake was a child.

Karlovic tossed the ball, uncoiling his massive frame as he rose to meet the ball eleven feet into the air. Eyes on the ball, Blake split step, ready to move in either direction. He never would.

The ace thundered past Blake at 120 miles an hour. Eyes hidden underneath his black ball cap, Blake lifted a finger to the sky, challenging the call. As he walked to the net, he tapped the line with his racket. The replay confirmed what Blake’s face said: Game over.

A year earlier, it was Blake’s fellow leading American—Andy Roddick—bidding professional tennis farewell. A stone’s throw away in Arthur Ashe, Roddick blinked back tears as he gave his final on-court interview. Blake’s ending had a different feel.

Blake slowly walked to the net, shaking hands with Karlovic and the umpire and packing his bags. His face reflected conflicting emotions—the pain of an end that came too soon and the calm of a man at peace with his journey. Fans rose in applause, whistling and cheering.

One could forgive Blake if he had taken a second to look back. After all, Blake announced himself to the world on the same court that he bid it farewell—Louis Armstrong, the U.S. Open’s second show court. In 2001, a 20-year old Blake, dreadlocks and all, stretched world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt to five sets with the blistering serve and rocket forehand that characterized his biggest wins.

If Louis Armstrong was the sight of Blake’s birth, Arthur Ashe was the sight of his renaissance in 2005. His opponent was French Open champion Rafael Nadal, who had risen to No. 2 in the world on the heels of a 24-match winning streak that included that year’s Canada Masters. By comparison, a year prior, Blake had been lying on a hospital bed with a broken neck, shingles, and his father’s death hanging over him.

No matter. Blake took down the teenage Spaniard in four sets, reaching the quarterfinals. A year later, he reached the same round before falling to Andre Agassi—both results his best ever in a major.

But in 2013, the man who enjoyed the best times of his career on the blue hard courts of Flushing Meadows waved goodbye. He did not look back as he strode off the court—shutting the door on an unusual career in which he took the road less traveled to the top, accomplishing much and leaving with little regret.

THE ROAD FROM HARLEM

There is a sad irony to Blake not ending his career on Arthur Ashe Stadium—the colossal 22,547 seat show court at the U.S. Open. Ashe, who spent a large part of his career training in Harlem, was the first black man to capture the U.S. Open. However, for all the shortsighted comparisons of the two during the latter’s career, Blake had his roots in a different Harlem.

Growing up, Blake was the prodigal son of the Harlem Tennis Center. Blake began coming to the center when he was one year old. In the beginning, he watched his parents play. He was on the court by age four and quickly moved up the junior ranks. By the fourth grade, his family made the move to Fairfield, Conn. to give Blake and his brother Thomas better instruction.

At the nearby Tennis Club of Trumbull, the Blakes bloomed. Harvard coach Dave Fish remembers Blake at 13 being “a little pencil of a kid,” but he quickly developed into one of the top juniors in the nation. In his senior year of high school, Blake made the finals of Kalamazoo, the most prestigious junior tournament in the United States.

“[Tennis] was something our parents were into, so we naturally gravitated towards it,” Thomas said. “He started to get pretty good around fourteen or fifteen…. By the time that he was 18, he was one of the top two players in the country.”