“It’s an individual sport, so we don’t have that many opportunities to feel like part of a team,” Blake said. “But when we do, they are usually memorable. The screaming of ‘Go Crimson’ after every big point and the support was so much fun during dual matches.”

A change in the format did not affect Blake’s excellence on the court. When he began competing as a freshman, “Squirt Gun” quickly became more deserving of his older brother’s nickname—“Tommy Gun.” The freshman blew past all expectations, teaming up with Majmudar and upsetting the top-seeded doubles team in just the duo’s fourth match together en route to the NCAA quarterfinals.

Blake’s meteoric rise continued in his sophomore year, when he became the first Ivy League player ever to win both the singles and doubles tournament at the ITA All-American tournament, a collegiate Grand Slam event.

“He was improving so fast that agents were calling me all the time to see if they could get an in with him,” Fish said.

Over winter break, Blake won a low-level professional tournament. The sophomore, who said the win “made me realize that I had a chance to play on that level,” had a decision to make. He had always planned to finish college, but collegiate tennis no longer offered a high enough level of competition.

“As the best guy in college, when you have outpaced your opponents in college, you can talk about it a bit more,” Fish said. “He needed more challenge at that point and the college game wasn’t giving it to him.”

Blake delayed the decision until the end of the year. In the NCAA tournament, he battled to the singles title before falling to the second-seeded player, University of Florida’s Jeff Morrison. That summer, he was chosen as a practice partner for the U.S. Davis Cup team. After discussing it through with Fish, Blake turned pro.

“I think it began to be clear that if he was going to be offered so much money that he could pay for school many times over and have a safety net to go out on the Tour for a couple years without risking everything, then he should go for it,” Fish said. “If I am telling him to stay in college so that we can win a lot more matches, that’s a lot like trying to staple a leaf back onto a tree.”

LIFE ON THE TOUR

Blake joined his brother in the pro ranks in the summer of 1999, teaming with Thomas in doubles at the U.S. Open. No longer playing for a team, the 19-year-old James found the atmosphere of the Tour a world apart from Harvard tennis.

“It is an extremely selfish endeavor on tour,” Blake said. “We are playing for ranking points and money out there, but at college, we wore our team colors with pride and played for that. But the intensity level does jump up quite a bit when guys are playing for their livelihood.”

Blake spent the majority of his first two years on tour on the Challenger circuit, slowly moving up the ATP ranks. In 2001, he joined the U.S. Davis Cup team. By the end of that year, he broke into the top 75. By mid-2003, Blake had risen as high as No. 22 in the world, won his first career ATP title, and reached the third round of the U.S. Open.

Then, disaster struck. In 2004, when it rained for Blake, it poured. In May, Blake slipped on a line at the Italian Open, breaking his neck. Two months later, his father, who had been diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, passed away. In the midst of this, Blake developed shingles.

By April 2005, his ranking had dropped all the way to No. 210. He returned to the Challenger circuit, playing for four—not six—figure paychecks. Driven by his hardships, Blake began regaining some of his success—and more.

“His life became much more real,” Fish said. “It focused his energies in a way nothing ever had before. Things had come very easily before, and he thought that his was a chance he would never get again.”