Blake’s Chances Are Blown Away

James Blake has cornered the market on coming back from things, and so a windstorm at Monday’s Pacific Life Open that blew the flags stiff and sent empty tin cans clanging down the bleachers didn’t faze him. Fernando Gonzalez’s forehand did.

In truth, the stroke that the stocky Chilean used to post his third-round, 6-4, 0-6, 6-3 victory over American Blake was not so much a forehand as it was a cannon.

“Once he loosened it up and started to feel it and hit the lines, man, it got tough,” Blake said.

Blake began the match ranked No. 151, Gonzalez No. 17. While Blake was recovering from a year in which he broke several vertebrae in his neck when he hit the net post in a practice session in Rome, and then lost his father to cancer and had a bout with shingles that affected the vision in his left eye, Gonzalez was collecting a bronze medal in singles and a gold in doubles in the Athens Olympics.

Blake is only in the field at Indian Wells via a wild-card invitation from tournament organizers, so on paper, his match with Gonzalez looked much more like a rout than what turned out to be: the most entertaining of the day.

It got interesting before the first point was played. Gonzalez, attempting to warm up his serve on the north side of Stadium Court 2, couldn’t keep it anywhere near the box with the wind howling at his back. And so, letting it get to him, he double-faulted frequently, fell behind 3-0 and got his first warning from the umpire’s chair when, after several service tosses and catches, he slapped the ball high in the air and watched it blow right out of the stadium.

Blake stayed calm.

“I knew coming out here the wind was going to be tough,” he said. “But I was determined to not let it get into my head. I have learned to worry about the things I can control and not the things I can’t.”

While Blake coped, Gonzalez fumed.

His huge forehand allowed him to win five of the next six games for a first-set victory. He also utilized some gamesmanship, slowing the rhythm of Blake by taking all of the 25 seconds -- and usually considerably more -- that a player is allotted between points. On a day in which the wind and dry heat made sweating a non-issue, Gonzalez toweled off more than a person in a sauna. Before he served, he studied the selection of tennis balls presented him like he was picking out a wedding ring.

Blake, who said afterward that the gamesmanship didn’t bother him, waited patiently, perhaps for Gonzalez’s volcano to erupt. At 0-2 of the second set and break point, and after already hitting three double faults, Gonzalez hit another and lava spurted. He smashed his racket to the ground, turning it from flat to spoon shaped, and the chair umpire issued warning No. 2.

That meant that Blake started the next game ahead, 15-love, and that one more eruption of any sort and Gonzalez would be defaulted. It also meant that Gonzalez tanked the last three games of the set, so the third set became a tale of tennis and temper. Temper, as in, could Gonzalez keep his.

Fueling the fire was a boisterous group of about a dozen Blake backers, who had showed up Friday to surprise Blake’s longtime coach, Brian Barker, on his 40th birthday.

“They were great,” Blake said.

But even the Barker Barkers couldn’t stop Gonzalez’s forehand in the third set.

Still, defeat was not devastation for Blake, who beat two higher-ranked players to get to this round and has another wild-card entry next week in Miami.

“I can go to Miami and not worry about somebody destroying me, unless I hit somebody red hot,” he said. “In January and February, I couldn’t say the same thing.”

Other featured men’s matches had Andy Roddick, the No. 3-seeded player, cruise past Jiri Novak of the Czech Republic, 6-1, 6-2; No. 6 Tim Henman of Britain taking out Jurgen Melzer of Austria, 7-5, 6-4, and No. 10 David Nalbandian of Argentina beating Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden, 6-1, 3-6, 6-1.

Ninth-seeded Andre Agassi needed 72 minutes to reach the fourth round, defeating Andrei Pavel of Romania, 6-3, 6-4.