Tennis/French Open Championships: This is what players expect from Paris. Court one, with its steeply terraced seating, people stacked high and the red clay heating up in the afternoon blaze, is also what Paris expects from Roland Garros.

James Blake, the only male American into the third round, was the player who made it happen, who finally got the crowds to make some noise, to get involved after a week of sodden moods. Blake has also now emerged as a contender outside of the heavy favourites, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, both of whom also won.

But yesterday was the French Open proper with hot balls popping off baked ground and players dehydrating. In the middle of it the 26-year-old, once voted the sexiest man on the planet, was carving out a name for himself by beating Spain's Nicolas Almagro in four sets.

For the sharp-eyed clay court watchers Almagro, although unknown, was one of the players who could have been around here next week. But Blake's win serves warning to others that his world ranking of eight is warranted.

Most immediately, Gael Monfils, the French teenager who knocked out Scotland's Andrew Murray, will take note as he meets the New Yorker next up.

Blake is one of those faces that adorn magazine covers and two years ago in Rome his fame could so easily have been for a different reason.

Practising on a clay court in the rain, Blake, then 24, an athlete who had overcome scoliosis, was hyped as the next Arthur Ashe, played for Harvard University, and modelled in GQ magazine, was hitting with doubles partner Robby Ginepri.

Ginepri hit a drop shot and Blake raced forward to pick it up. Slipping on the wet clay, he slammed head first into the metal net post. Only by a matter of inches did he avoid snapping his neck and being permanently paralysed. Suffering from a fractured vertebra, Blake went home to Fairfield, Connecticut, to recover.

Not long thereafter, his father, Thomas, died of cancer before Blake himself came down with the viral infection shingles, which further delayed his comeback.

Race has also always been a factor in his career. He was never just James Blake, always James Blake, the next great African-American tennis player.

At the 2001 US Open, and then ranked 95th in the world, Blake was beating Lleyton Hewitt when the Australian verbally exploded. Following a disputed call, Hewitt pointed at the African-American linesman and said, "Look at him. Look at him, and you tell me what the similarity is. Just get him off the court."

The remark was quickly interpreted as racist as it seemed clear Hewitt was implying the black linesman was likely to favour a black player.

Hewitt later denied that interpretation and Blake responded with a dignified silence.

For now, though, his ripping forehand is turning heads, and yesterday his ability to keep Almagro's heavy serves in play frustrated the clay-court specialist, who had carried a first set over from the previous night.

"I don't really think about it, that I'm the last American left," said Blake. "But I have to prove Brad Gilbert right. He said there's going to be an American in the second week. I've got to make sure he's not wrong for the first time ever."

Blake has now career wins over Carlos Moya and Almagro, a good benchmark for the condition of his clay-court game.

Nadal had a smooth run to the next round by defeating the other remaining American, Kevin Kim.

The second seed, who is 20 years old today, dropped just three games in the first two sets before finishing the match 6-4 in the third. He now meets the Frenchman Paul Henri Mathieu in the third round, a win possibly setting up a meeting with Hewitt in the game after.

Roger Federer also joined the untroubled run of seeds going through to the next round. His Centre Court match, the last of the day, was for the first two sets at least the usual expression of a well-oiled, dominant force. Then, doing all of the hard work to go a service break up in the third set for 6-5 and with the end of the match in sight, Federer went 0-40 down before handing over his service game to the Chilean Nicolas Massu for 6-6.

Massu took the chance and the match went to a fourth set before an out-of-sorts Federer finally clinched it.