Monkey Ball

It's not typical, in a second round match, to find a top seed, struggling for his tennis life against the oldest male left in the tournament. But there he was, James Blake, against Fabrice Santoro.

Santoro is French, and has been playing for quite a while. He has pretty odd strokes. He appears to hit a two handed forehand with his right hand over his left (he appears to be a lefty), and then slices a one-handed lefty backhand.

Even though Santoro is French, and Americans are notoriously (and unreasonably) anti-French, they love to see a scrapper. When Alex Corretja pushed Sampras to a fifth set, with Sampras puking all over, people were impressed by how hard Corretja pushed Sampras.

This time, Santoro was the one who was suffering. Despite having cramps and injury timeouts, the crowd didn't turn on him, wishing him well, even as they wanted Blake to win.

And Blake. At times, he was just striking the ball long or wide. And when Santoro clawed his way to a fifth set, that had to get on Blake's mind. Blake had played nine five-setters and had the unenviable record of 0-9. When the score was 4-4, Blake had to be wondering if he could pull this match out, or would he choke against a cramping player and lose?

But Blake kept his head in their long enough, and Santoro, as dogged as his attempt couldn't overcome age and a body that wouldn't stay pain-free long enough for him to claim a nice win.

And Blake, who knew it was a matter of time before he won his first fifth-setter didn't have to wait any longer. The moment was here, and Blake was relieved, ready to play one more round, and live up to a promise of the next great American player.