NEW YORK -- The question was hurled at James Blake, almost before he sat down for Thursday's post-match press conference. He was asked if he would reveal his innermost thoughts concerning his highly anticipated Saturday rematch with Lleyton Hewitt.

"I wish I was a little deeper, had all those innermost thoughts," mused Blake, who attended Harvard for two years before turning professional in 1999. "I'm happy I'm in the third round. This is the first time I'm in the third round.

"Being around these guys every day, you realize everyone is human. They're all in the locker room, they can all have a bad day. [Hewitt] can have a bad day, he can have a good day. I'm playing my absolute best, maybe. You never know what can happen."

A deep thought, to be sure.

What happened last year in the second round here was a volcanic five-set match between Blake and Hewitt. Blake won two of the first three sets against the eventual champion, but cramps and dehydration all but crippled him in the decisive set.

The tennis portion of that rousing Louis Armstrong Stadium match, however, has been almost forgotten in the wake of a comment Hewitt made in the crucible of the moment. After several run-ins with an African-American linesman, Hewitt finally appealed to the chair umpire.

"Look at him, mate. Look at him," Hewitt said shrilly, referring to the linesman after a call he questioned. "You tell me what the similarity is."

In the middle of this exchange, Hewitt appeared to motion toward Blake, the product of a black father and a white mother. Hewitt's outburst was seen by many as racist, since it seemed to refer to the similarity between the skin color of Blake and the linesman.

Later, Hewitt insisted the similarity he was referring to was the identity of the linesman making call after (he thought) dubious call. Blake, to his credit, did not press the issue; he said he believed that Hewitt had meant nothing by the remark.

"I don't think about it at all," Hewitt said Thursday after beating Israeli qualifier Noam Okun in straight sets to advance to the third round. "James and I were fine about it. We spoke straight after the situation. That was pretty much the end of it. I've played James twice since then. We're not the best of mates, I guess, off the court, just because we're from different countries."

Blake confirmed Hewitt's view.

"After that incident, I went ahead and tried to play well in Asia," he said. "I got some good wins there, just put it behind me. We put it behind us the next day in the locker room. Since then, I don't think we've talked about it. We just moved on."

Interestingly, since the incident, both players have moved up in the rankings.

Hewitt, then 20, won the ATP's year-end championship and became the youngest player ever to finish the year at No. 1, breaking a mark set by Jimmy Connors. That's where Hewitt, thanks to his second Grand Slam title at this year's Wimbledon, remains to this day.

Blake, meanwhile, improved his ranking from No. 223 in 2000 to No. 88. He's currently an ascendant No. 21 on the ATP and has reached three finals, Memphis, Newport and Washington.

Although he lost to Andy Roddick in Memphis and Tayor Dent in Newport, Blake broke through for his first title in Washington, beating Andre Agassi in the semifinals and Paradorn Srichaphan in the final. This, after losing the first set to Scrichaphan 1-6, surviving a tiebreaker in the second and settling down for a 6-4 third.

Saturday's match is the second scheduled for Arthur Ashe Stadium, behind the 11 a.m. ET Monica Seles vs. Yoon Jeong Cho match. That means Hewitt and Blake will face off, appropriately, close to high noon.

Will Hewitt, with the world watching, be on his best behavior for this match? Might that quell Hewitt's notorious fire? And, considering that Blake's classy comportment kept the heat off Hewitt and, at least indirectly, helped him win his first Grand Slam singles title, will the Australian cut Blake a little slack?

Uh, no, according to John McEnroe. Hewitt, he said during a USA broadcast, will be typical Hewitt.

The overarching question, though, is this: Given recent events, just what is typical James Blake? Is he still the player that tightened up, literally and figuratively, when he got ahead of Hewitt? Or is he something better, more professionally evolved?

"I have the confidence that I know I can beat a player like him," Blake said. "I'm coming off probably my best win ever, over Andre Agassi, a week ago. I have the confidence. I know it's possible."

Greg Garber is a senior writer at ESPN.com.