Jimmy Fallon Had Andy Murray Slip Hilarious Phrases into Tennis Interviews
Murray, Naomi Osaka, and more tennis stars injected some silliness into their U.S. Open sound bites, with help from The Tonight Show.
You know that classic tennis phrase, "the tighter the strings, the sweeter the swings"? No? What about "slap your dad and call him Brad"? If these aren't ringing a bell, that's because Jimmy Fallon and The Tonight Show writers made them up. When Fallon asked Andy Murray, Naomi Osaka, Stefanos Tsitsipas, and more tennis stars to casually insert a bit of nonsense into their interviews, the results were hilarious.
The players flawlessly executed Fallon's prank during the 2019 U.S. Open. The special tennis edition of The Tonight Show's "Drop It In" segment — for which he's previously enlisted the likes of Steph Curry and Scarlett Johansson — found the athletes delivering their head-scratching quotes with a straight face.
"No one knew that we were doing this," Fallon told The Tonight Show audience. "They just would say these phrases. It's bizarre, but it's so good!"
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Andy Murray and Naomi Osaka add Jimmy Fallon's lines to their interviews
Murray, who participated in his final Wimbledon in 2024 and may still head to Paris for his fifth Olympics this summer, kicked things off.
"I usually get into New York pretty early and, you know, I spend probably five or six days training over at Flushing Meadows," Murray said of his U.S. Open training regiment. "And I used to take cat naps. Now I'm taking kitten naps, which are half as long but twice as cute." Makes sense to us!
While praising Serena Williams, Madison Keys invoked a phrase used by absolutely no one when she somberly shared, "I think Serena is so good at just knowing how to use every part of the kayak."
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Czech player Karolina Pliskova expertly tossed off, "I just try to do, you know, game, set, match, do the cabbage patch. You know what I mean?" Meanwhile, tennis legend Maria Sharapova dropped some slightly nonsensical knowledge.
"Patience is not one of my best qualities," Sharapova began. "Let me tell you something: You're never gonna find three tennis balls in a Pringles can."
A couple of pros, Novak Djokovic and Naomi Osaka, took a stab at would-be catchphrase "when the score is deuce, the juice gets loose." And finally, U.S. Olympic gold medalist Bethanie Mattek-Sands capped things off with a very funny delivery of, "this ish tennish!"
"'This ish tennish' is what I wrote," Fallon shared at the end of the segment, impressed that Mattek-Sands turned her line into a full character. "I was like, none of them will do that one!"
Tennis clearly isn't these players' only talent.
Is tennis in the 2024 Olympics?
Yes — and the action kicks off on July 27, 2024.
Check out the full schedule of Olympic events for all of the details, and watch the games on NBC and Peacock.
