People in Sports | Mikhail Youzhny

Mikhail Youzhny: An on-court tantrum by the Russian tennis player left him bloodied but made him a YouTube celebrity.

When Youzhny hit a backhand into the net during his victorious third-round match Monday at the Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne, Fla., he angrily whacked himself in the head three times with his racket strings. The forehand to the forehead sent a thick stream of blood running from above his hairline down his nose nearly to his mouth.

By Wednesday afternoon, video of the tantrum had drawn more than 500,000 hits on YouTube.

"I saw that," said James Blake, who lost in the quarterfinals Wednesday. "That was pretty funny — not for Mikhail, I'm sure.

"Mardy Fish does that. He punches the strings and ends up bleeding on his knuckles. I did that as a kid, and I kind of stopped doing that. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense."

The Associated Press