Retired tennis star James Blake returns to the court at the Rancho Santa Fe Open

When the limelight dims and the Cheers turn to an awkward silence, many top professional athletes don’t get to walk away. By loosening the vise grip on something so rooted, so second nature, things can get out of control.

James Blake has lived it and left it.

Blake, once a tennis supernova who reached number four in the world, played poker and golf with Michael Jordan. He sipped iced tea at the late President George HW Bush’s home and visited Barack Obama at the White House.

Then in 2013 it was over.

Blake, a Solana Beach resident, returns for the week paired with rising local star Hudson Rivera in singles play at this week’s Rancho Santa Fe Pro Open.

When he walks onto the court at the Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club for the start of the seven-event SoCal Pro Series, Blake brings his rackets and an unusual perspective.

Ten years ago, his body was in undeniable rebellion. Blake and wife Emily’s first child had just turned 1; The Blakes had another daughter on the way. The time for hard truths had come for the man who reached three Grand Slam quarterfinals.

I think I was really lucky because a lot of people struggle with the mental part (of retirement),” Blake said. When you’re competitive for so long and you put your heart and soul into one sport, you’re so isolated. You care so much about your ranking, your health, your travels, it seems like the world is like that until you get away from it and realize that there is a much bigger world outside of tennis.

I was able to be a father right away. As a professional athlete, I think it’s a relatively selfish pursuit to really forget what was important to you and think about what’s important to your kids. It was a relatively easy move.

Blake, now sporting a salt and pepper shadow framing her face, ticks off her schedule for a coffee shop interview. She had already attended one of her daughters’ softball games with a birthday party. Later, his other children’s soccer games appeared.

This is life after Life. And for Blake, it’s endless joy.

If any regrets remained, Blake clearly shed them long, long ago. There were close matches at Grand Slam events, including an epic US Open match against Andre Agassi and a fourth-place finish after being knocked out by Roger Federer at the 2008 Olympics.

Life goes on without you, so you better make the most of it and appreciate it, Blake said. I’m not going to cry about why me and why I couldn’t play a little longer, why I couldn’t win more matches. Because I didn’t say why me when I won all those matches.

You have to take the good and the bad. When I was there, I was lucky enough to recognize that it was limited, I realized it was ending and I took it in.

This by no means means that the biggest setbacks have not been left unscathed. However, it shows that he relied on healthy ways of framing things.

Pain has the power to teach.

Sometimes I didn’t sleep at night, Blake said. I was definitely kicking myself about things. But I always allowed myself one day to get rid of the anger and frustration, but then it came back to work. If you don’t have near misses in your career, you haven’t considered it.

If you let it haunt you, you’ll have a long life after tennis.

One of the most glittering moments of Blakes’ career came in 2007, when he, Andy Roddick and others pushed the USA to the Davis Cup title. It’s been a dozen years since the Americans won the event.

They haven’t won since.

Really, really special, Blake said.

Blake met Rivera while playing golf at Del Mar Country Club. Caddy, who is a friend of Rivera’s, mentioned that she hopes to meet the tennis icon. A few conversations later, they agreed to match.

Soon more than a year passed. Blake watched the Stanford-bound teenager earn his first ATP point at the 2022 Rancho Santa Fe Open and came up with the idea of ​​playing doubles.

Now they share the justice.

The biggest joy I get is seeing him get better, Blake said. In the last two years or so I’ve been hitting with him, he’s gone from someone who probably wouldn’t have played at almost any DI college to someone who I think will be an instant star in college.

Now Blake attaches them once more.

I feel like I’m sore because I don’t play much tennis anymore, she said. It will be fun. This is a one time thing, only with Hudson. I have no illusions, no intentions of playing professional tennis again.

There is really no thought of retirement.

Being a father takes care of that.