Following Novak Djokovic’s win over Radek Stepanek at the U.S. Open, commentator Darren Cahill interviewed the silly Serbian. During the interview, Novak did another of his infamous impressions, this one of Johnny Mac. And McEnroe was game. He came down from the booth and joined him on the court. Hilarity ensued.

Who’s Andy?! That’s what my office mates were asking me this morning. I just checked out Andy Murray’s Head YouTek Radical Pro racquet at his new website, the Radical Messenger. Personally, I use the YouTek Speed but it was still cool to see Andy talk about his racquet in the video. Super nice paint job on that stick I think.

Tennis strings quite often get overlooked as pertaining to performance. But it’s the part that makes contact with the ball (ideally). Would you put cheap tires on a Ferarri? So here are the results of an unofficial TennisCrowd String Survey from players in Seattle area.

Overall, I like my tennis game. My strokes have good form, I have all the shots, I rarely double-fault, and I’m quick around the court. However, I do have a weakness, my head. Sometimes (much more often than I’d like), I get tight on the court; I choke. The court starts looking very small. Like, my opponent is everywhere. My shots will get weak. I’ll hit off my back foot. I’ll not react to shots. I’ll start hitting shots wildly all over the court with no control.

It’s easy to blow off initial soreness, but as pain gravitates to the outside middle of the playing arm, discomfort makes it nearly impossible to, say, grab a half gallon of milk out of the refrigerator. Tennis is basically out of the question, rendering a pastime to a past life.

Instead of trusting myself, I decided to base some tennis decisions on what a Magic 8-ball tells me. Here’s my conversation.

Roger Federer can shred it! I don’t know how I missed this one. It’s Federer playing Guitar Hero (not really) with his tennis racquet. This is another video featuring Rhys Darby (AKA Murray Hewitt of Flight of the Conchords fame). I think he should come over and play some Rock Band with me.

Here is another video from my trip to the BNP Paribas Open a while back. I was able to go to the night match when Roger Federer played Fernando Verdasco. Federer won the match quite convincingly but Verdasco had his moments. You never know when he’ll come up with a great shot. I would like a backhand return like this…especially against a Federer serve.