By Mike McIntyre

It seems that following James Blake's defeat in the first round last week in Atlanta many are calling on the veteran American to hangup his racquet and call it a career. I've read numerous tennis blogs and chat forums where people are surprisingly coming to the conclusion that the thirty year old Blake is suddenly past due.

Admittedly Blake is struggling with his game and as a result his confidence as well of late. His ranking has dropped to 115th in the world which often leaves him outside the direct acceptance list for ATP tournaments. His record on tour is a mediocre 8-10 and he has not made it past the second round of any event since returning from a knee injury in June that kept him off tour for three months. 

Of any player on tour however, James Blake should be the last guy you would ever count out. Blake has proven time and time again throughout his life and his career that he is the ultimate come-back player. His resilience has seen him overcome a severe case of scoliosis as a child, partial paralysis following his battle with shingles and even a broken neck from an unlikely collision with the net-post in 2004.

I believe that Blake's recent struggles are simply a case of needing to shake off the rust from his three month absence from the tour this spring. He started the year by giving U.S. Open champion Juan Martin Del Potro a good run for his money at the Aussie Open where he ultimately lost the second-round match by a score of 10-8 in the fifth set. It was only a year ago that he made the finals of the Queen's Club grass-court tournament and he was still in the top-ten as of January 2009.

Blake's frustration is understandable and many saw this exchange at Wimbledon between he and broadcaster Pam Schriver which was quite out of character for him.

Regardless I believe that if he can stay healthy it is only a matter of time before he finds his rythm. While a return to the top-ten is unlikely, Blake can still compete on hard-courts and with all the top guns other than Rafael Nadal struggling with their games lately, a decent run at a Grand Slam on his favorite surface is not implaussible given the right draw.