WIMBLEDON, England — The lawns of the All England Club have long rewarded powerful athletes and aggressive tennis. Since Boris Becker won his first title in 1985, only two Wimbledon winners might be said to be more counter puncher than knockout artist: Lleyton Hewitt, who claimed the 2001 title, and Andre Agassi, who kept his footing in 1992 as Goran Ivanisevic, one of the sport’s alltime great servers, rattled off 37 aces. Otherwise, the game’s best attackers have dominated these championships, men like Roger Federer, Pete Sampras, Ivanisevic, Becker, Stefan Edberg, Richard Krajicek, and Michael Stich.

James Blake, who won his second-round match yesterday 6–4, 6–3, 6–3 over Andrei Pavel, fits that mold — few men in today’s game have more weapons, and perhaps only one, Gael Monfils of France, has more speed. Yet Blake, the 27-year-old American who has slipped a bit in 2007 following the best season of his career, had a 4–4 record at Wimbledon before these championships began and has never survived the third round. Why?

It’s true that Blake grew up playing on hard courts, but it’s not as if anyone else on the tour these days hit his first tennis ball on grass (Federer was raised on clay). Brian Barker, who has coached Blake since age 12, and Patrick McEnroe, the U.S. Davis Cup captain, said Blake’s lack of comfort has a lot to do with his footing on the slippery grass.

“It’s a little bit harder to move,” Barker said. “Speed doesn’t show up quite so much on the grass.”

McEnroe suggested that the way Blake uses his speed might cause him problems. On hard courts, Blake can sprint his way out of trouble, compensating for a lapse in positioning with a few explosive steps. On grass, it’s more difficult for him to make up the difference because the ball doesn’t bounce as high and he can’t change directions or push off as well.

“James is one of those guys who’s extremely fast but he’s not always great in the footwork department,” McEnroe said. “Agassi wasn’t that fast, but he was great at getting into position, he had great footwork. Federer is one of those guys who’s fast and has great footwork.”

Pavel, 33, is by no means among the most intimidating men on the tour. Still, McEnroe liked what he saw from Blake yesterday. He served a reasonably high percentage of first serves (62%), hit 12 aces, and lost his serve once. When Blake serves well, he worries less about hitting aggressive returns. It showed yesterday when he converted five of seven break points. On consecutive points in the first set, he volleyed quite well, too, as Pavel fired successive powerful strokes at Blake from close range.

“His game has been good all year, I think it’s just mental,” McEnroe said. “He looks as comfortable on the grass as I’ve ever seen him here.”

Blake said after years of coming to Wimbledon, he’s learned to play more like he would on hard courts, which suits the tightly packed soil the tournament uses these days. “From what I hear in the old days, there were a lot of bad bounces,” he said. “Now you get a lot of true bounces. You just step up, rip your shots, go after it just like hard courts.”

For all the concern about Blake’s season — he’s dropped to no. 9 in the rankings from no. 4 when the year began — he’s not too far off of his pace from last year. When he arrived at Wimbledon in 2006, he had two titles and a 28–12 record. This year he had one title and a 24–14 record. What hurt him most were bad performances in the two hard court Masters events in Indian Wells, Calif., and Miami. He lost in the third and second rounds this year after reaching the final and quarterfinals last year.

Bad stretches for Blake inevitably inspire questions about whether he’s teamed with Barker for too long. It’s an obvious reaction to their unusually long relationship compared to most coaches and pros: Andy Roddick has employed four coaches in the last four years, and Federer, who has done spectacular without a coach, has had two of them in that period. After knowing Blake for years and offering him advice, McEnroe isn’t one to question the pairing, which has withstood highs and lows on the tour and in life, most notably the death of Blake’s father and various injuries that kept him off the tour.

“Brian has been there for James for a lot of personal stuff, even when James was a kid and throwing his racket all over the place,” McEnroe said. “James is a complicated guy when it comes to how much coaching he can handle, how much you can talk to him. He’s pretty tricky, and I don’t want to say that in a negative way. You just have to sort of say it to him the right way, and I’ve actually learned from Brian.”

Barker put it this way: “For now James and I are together and things are going well. The friendship, that we’ll have for life. The other, depending on how things go, that could come to an end any time.”

Blake and Barker return to action today, against Juan Carlos Ferrero, the former French Open champion, U.S. Open finalist, and, briefly, world no. 1. Ferrero has his ranking back up to no. 18 after fighting through injuries and a long slump, and he’s not incompetent on grass despite his clay court leanings. Two times he has reached the fourth round, and in 2005, he played Federer to a tiebreaker in the third set. Blake has lost to the Spaniard both times they have met, both times on a hard court.

If Blake defeats Ferrero, he would likely face Fernando Gonzalez, the man who knocked Blake out of the Australian Open. In the quarterfinals, he’d probably face Federer. Blake’s mother, Betty, who watched her son’s match yesterday, wasn’t too worried about what the draw might bring in the next few days.

“I never look,” she said.

tperrotta@nysun.com