Blake bypassed qualifying rounds into the U.S. Open after being given a wild card by the tournament, and was slotted to play Karlovic for his first-round match.
The end was short—after falling to Karlovic, Blake waved at the fans in Armstrong Stadium, the final time he would do so as a singles player. Blake said that after he walked off the court, he was honored by the amount of support he received.
“People I hadn’t heard from in years were texting or e-mailing to congratulate me and wish me luck in retirement,” Blake said. “Juan Martin del Potro, Andy Murray, and Alex Bogomolov [greeted me] after my last match in the locker room. They waited around to wish me well, and that was such a classy move by them and I will not forget it.”
Reflecting back, Blake acknowledged that he would never experience anything quite like the Tour again.
“I will miss the competition and the friendships the most about the tour,” Blake said. “I realize I won’t ever feel that same pressure of a fifth-set tiebreaker or anything like that after my career, and I loved those moments. The friendships I made were special to me and I will remain close with many of the guys on tour, but not seeing them in the locker rooms every week will be different.”
That loss was one felt not just by Blake, but by friends and fellow players on the Tour, some of whom Blake played with for years. Support poured in over the days following his announcement, both directly to him and over social media.
“It’s going to be a little bit of an adjustment for me, and for everybody, really, to not see him around in the locker room anymore,” Isner said. “[His retirement] was pretty tough for me to swallow, and a lot of other guys are good friends with him. But I think he went out his way—he had an incredible career given all the setbacks and everything he had to overcome. He had an incredible career, I think a career that he never could have imagined having.”
Blake’s setbacks might have broken a lesser player. No one would have faulted him for quitting in 2005. But he kept going, reaching the pinnacle of his career the next year with encouragement from his friends and coaches.
“Part of his success is that he puts in a lot of hard work and a lot of time,” Majmudar said. “But I think also a big part of his success is how he handled success and stayed grounded.... While you can’t necessarily quantify that, that was a definitely a large part of his success, especially when he went through difficult times.”
It is easy to see Blake’s career as that of an overachiever. The “pencil of a kid” played twentieth-century power tennis in a different era; when injuries sapped his strokes of their power, he won on guts and experience. In his 15 years after leaving the safe confines of the Murr Center, Blake battled back from adversity on and off the court. Even his trademark doggedness occasionally did him in—his 2004 neck injury came from an inadvertent dive into the net post, trying to recover a drop shot.
Yet, the title of overachiever demeans and trivializes Blake’s success. Harvard’s most famous tennis player had wins on the biggest of stages—from the junior courts in Kalamazoo to the fortress of Arthur Ashe—and the talent to match it. In the end, perhaps it would be more accurate to term Blake an achiever. Looking back, his brother said that Blake can rest satisfied on a career that had a little bit of everything.
“He always says and our coach always stressed that when you retire you want to look back and feel like you gave it your all,” Thomas said. “And I think he can look back and say he did that.”
—Staff writer David Freed can be reached at david.freed@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @CrimsonDPFreed.
—Staff writer Samantha Lin can be reached at samantha.lin@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @LinSamnity.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
CORRECTION: Jan. 7, 2014
An earlier version of this story misstated the name of the tennis facility where the Blake brothers “bloomed” as young players. In fact, it was the Tennis Club of Trumbull not the Trumbull Tennis Center.