Byline: Wayne Coffey

NEW YORK _ Seven hours after his favorite baseball team completed its four-game debacle in Philadelphia, James Blake looked at the cunning counterpuncher across the net late Thursday night, and knew this much: He did not want to experience a Billy Wagner moment. Not here, on the Ashe Stadium court he thinks of as his tennis home.

Not in the second round, with a chance to win the first five-set match of his career.

Not against a relentless Frenchman in a shirt that looked like a pack of Life Savers, amid the first fully raucous late-night ambience of this year's Open.

It took nearly 3{ hours and enough wild, highlight-stuffed points to ...