A plot of pavement in Flushing became Hah-vud Yahd for two hours on Saturday night. It is a blue strip of asphalt that a Harvard refugee named James Blake painted crimson, leaving Rafael Nadal in the red, and the US Open tilted somewhat off its axis.“James! James! James” screamed Blake’s ecstatic posse, a Greek chorus of about 25 in an upper box of Ashe Stadium. Over and over in locomotive syncopation throughout the matinee of their man’s massive form-busting. Nadal, uprooted as the No. 2 tennis player on earth, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1, probably heard the chant in his sleep last night.Nadal, the champion of Italy and France, is the acknowledged doge of dirt. But this was the hard stuff that No. 49 Blake - a hopeful here on charity, a wild card - savored while leading coach Dave Fish’s Harvards through two brilliant seasons before he turned pro.However, one year ago, watching the Open on television, a troubled Blake was wondering whether he would ever play in the big league again. It was a ghastly year that included a broken neck, viral attacks, facial paralysis, and, worst of all, the death of his father.“I feel like I did that today. I gave 100 percent, and I’d like to think he was proud of me. Winning is just icing on the cake. Sometimes when things aren’t going well, or how rough something seems, I’ll think about the fact that he never complained when he had cancer. He didn’t complain about the surgery, the chemo, or the radiation. He was always positive, upbeat. So I think about him at times when I’m on the court, and that I’d better keep a positive attitude.“I wouldn’t have won this match three years ago against a guy as good as Nadal. Losing the second set, as I did, I would have panicked, wondered what I should change, not considering that the other guy might have been panicking after losing the first set.”This was The Victory of his 25 years, even though Blake would disagree. Get this: Not since Charlie Pasarell beat Fred Stolle in 1965 had an unseeded American bounced the second seed. As Blake prepared to serve match point to conclude a five-game gallop, a rare tribute was offered by the multitude. Everybody stood and clapped and yelled so bombastically that even the “James!” gang was lost in the cacophony.“So loud I could have screamed at the top of my lungs and nobody would have heard me,” Blake said. “I started thinking, ’This is what people talk about when they say they can’t hear themselves think.’ You try not to think of the magnitude of 20-odd thousand people screaming for you.” NYTHewitt gets a Dent but survives crashNEW YORK: Third seed Lleyton Hewitt scrambled past American Taylor Dent in a thrilling five-set battle winning 6-3, 3-6, 6-7, 6-2, 7-5 to reach the fourth round. The Australian won the first five games on his way to taking the first set. Dent, the 25th seed, attacked Hewitt at every opportunity and roared back to win the second set and then snatch the third on a tiebreak. As Dent tired, Hewitt came back to win the fourth set and after trading breaks in the decider, Hewitt played a stunning 11th game to break again and serve for the match. Dent saved three match points but Hewitt blazed an ace at the fourth attempt. Ninth seed Nadia Petrova withstood some fierce hitting from Czech teenager Nicole Vaidisova, coming through 7-6, 7-5 to reach the quarter-finals.
