Less than a week after signing professional boxer Audley Harrison Full Tilt Poker has brought another sports star on board, this time in the form of tennis star James Blake. Blake becomes the second major tennis player to sign a deal with an online poker room; retired tennis superstar Boris Becker plays under the PokerStars logo.

Blake joins the growing roster of celebrities and sports stars that play under the banner of “Friends of Full Tilt Poker”, including hockey great Wayne Gretzky, UFC announcer Bruce Buffer, Actor Don Cheadle, authors Michael Craig and James McManus, UFC champ Matt Hughes, UFC fighter Mike Swick, and actor Mekhi Phifer, among others.

Blake is not only a top tennis pro –with 15 career titles—but also does a lot of humanitarian work including running the Thomas Blake Sr. Memorial Research Fund. Blake is an avid poker player who proved his mettle on the green felt with a runner-up finish on Celebrity Poker Showdown.

Blake wrote the New York Times bestseller, “Breaking Back: How I lost everything and won my life back” in 2007; a gripping tale about Blake’s setbacks following a 2004 back injury that nearly ended his career, while at the same time his father lost his battle with cancer.

Tags: Boris Becker, Celebrity Poker Showdown, Don Cheadle, Friends of Full Tilt Poker, Full tilt Poker, James Blake, James McManus, Major Tennis, Matt Hughes Ufc, Matt Hughes Ufc Fighter, Mekhi Phifer, Michael Craig, mike swick, New York Times Bestseller, Poker Player, Poker Room, Professional Boxer, Tennis Superstar, Thomas Blake, Wayne Gretzky, York Times Bestseller

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 16th, 2010 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.