By Marc Raimondi
The night session at Arthur Ashe Stadium has become so famous, so highly sought after by players and fans in part because of local guy James Blake's memorable matches and the boisterousness of his own personal cheering section, dubbed the J-Block.
But Saturday night at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center both took a hit in the very environment they've helped make chic. As Blake fell to close friend Mardy Fish, 6-3, 6-3, 7-6, in the third round of the US Open, the J-Block was criticized by television announcers and the chair umpire for being too loud — and sometimes obnoxious.
“I think the umpire warned them one time, and to be honest, I don't really feel that was appropriate,” said Blake, who had made three straight trips into the fourth round or better at Flushing Meadows. “If they made one inappropriate comment, I know there were a lot of other people in the stadium that made comments or spoke at the wrong time and they were singled out to be warned, when I think most times they behaved very fairly.”
The J-Block is a group of Blake's friends who propped up the Westchester native when he was almost out of tennis completely in 2004. When Blake competed in the Pilot Pen tournament in nearby New Haven, Conn., in 2005 while on the comeback trail, the dozens of friends and fans came to cheer him on. USTA official Anne Worcester, also the US Open tournament director, nicknamed the group the J-Block after taking hundreds of ticket requests from Blake at the Pilot Pen.
“That's where it started,” said Blake, who will be a groomsman at Fish's Sept. 28 wedding. “That year I had a great run and made the finals and won that tournament. Then came here and made the quarterfinals, and had the match with Andre Agassi that was somewhat memorable. They were here for every single one.”
The T-shirts members of the J-Block wear are sold to fund Blake's cancer research fund. Blake and his friends are also very influential in supporting the Harlem Junior Tennis League, in which Blake began practicing as a youth.
The 29-year-old can't understand why the J-Block has become so controversial. In the third set Saturday, the group began cheering loudly when Fish made a mistake, blurring the lines between sportsmanship and rooting for your favorite player. Announcers on CBS even went as far to say that perhaps the J-Block should be broken up.
“These are true tennis fans and know the game well, most of them, and have fun at it,” Blake said. “So I don't understanding the reasoning why it would end when it's doing something positive for the sport, in my opinion. If someone can come here and have a serious discussion about why it's negative for the sport, then maybe we'll talk about disbanding it. But for right now the fact that my cancer research fund is getting funded by the T-shirts they're wearing, I'm going to do my best to keep them together.”
