In summer 2004, Blake went through trials that would have tested the patience of Job: He broke his neck while practicing in Europe and then his father, Thomas, died in July.

After his father's death, Blake suffered the attack of a virus that, among other things, affected his vision and took him off the men's professional tour.

Such is the stuff of this 25-year-old product of Fairfield High School, that he today looks at the broken neck as a blessing that let him spend time with his father during his last days.

Such is his stuff that even as he struggled through lean times on the comeback trail that he cherished the mere fact that he was back on a tennis court.

After what he's been through, James Blake has tennis — and many other of life's facets — in perspective. It shows.

Today, he'll walk on to a court at the U.S. Tennis Center in Queens for an opening round match in the U.S. Open tennis tournament. No one, of course, is more proud of him than his mother, Betty, of Fairfield.

And he makes no secret of his devotion to her. Even proclaiming her 70th birthday to the fans after the finals of a recent tournament.

Win or lose today, James Blake has proven his mettle on and off the tennis court.