KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. (AP) – A tennis tantrum by Russian Mikhail Youzhny left him bloodied but made him a YouTube celebrity.

When Youzhny hit a backhand into the net during his third-round match Monday at the Sony Ericsson Open, 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 a half million 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 episode occurred with Youzhny trailing 5-4 in the third set of his match against Nicolas Almagro. The 11th-ranked Youzhny went on to win in a third-set tiebreaker and didn’t require stitches. He lost in the next round.