Star players veer toward song-and-dance routines

It never ends: Tennis and song—and, more and more, dance—are simply intertwined forevermore. For good, for bad. Let's begin with the good.

On Tuesday night in Cincinnati, Lindsay Davenport raved on the Tennis Channel about Roger Federer's impeccable footwork against Juan Martin del Potro while Justin Gimelstob tagged him as "the Baryshnikov of tennis." These are basically true statements.

Elsewhere, Bob Bryan recently brought a gorgeous piano in house, that after soliciting feedback via Twitter on just what set of ivories he should purchase. Then, courtesy of a @TSFtennis find, photos surfaced of an early-August hitting session between Serena Williams and Canadian rapper Drake, a precursor to Drake's next-to-perfect attendance at Serena's matches during the Rogers Cup last week in Toronto, reported on Monday here at the Spin. Last, James Blake recently told @OntheGoTennis that his guilty pleasure is Kelly Clarkson tunes. Music crit is subjective of course, but we'll let this one go. All is right about a powerhouse voice.

Now for the bad. Or, if not "bad," per se, that which leaves something to be desired. And do have a seat during this changeover, friends, as it's about to get dicey.

As teased in the Spin recently, Sorana Cirstea shot Xperia Hot Shots clips of her dance lesson and subsequent video shoot, replete with backup dancers:

Unfortunately, Cirstea largely made her professional cohorts do the leg work, appearing rather flat-footed herself despite the jouncy song. She mourned her dancing skills later via Twitter but, in all fairness, did put on some righteous sway for about 10 seconds at the 2:50 mark of her foray. That came via Rosero McCoy, yet another touted as "choreographer to the stars," who taught her the moves and is himself not short on music opinions. (As a general rule of thumb, people who tweet in ALL CAPS have problems. People who tweet hateration about Beyoncé in all caps likely have A LOT OF PROBLEMS.)

So Sorana basically went the way of Monica Seles, Martina Hingis, and Justine Henin before her in not exactly dancing up a storm. Still, who wants to see Cheryl Burke play tennis anytime soon? Exactly. Everyone should stick to what she knows. Even so, let the record show a few recent unforced errors from the tennis elite:

• Serena waxed emo about Britney Spears' drippy ballad "Lucky"
• Venus Williams, already a pro-bono PR chief for rap-rock has-beens 311, and her little sis took in a Soundgarden show, an event for which Serena more or less tweeted the set list. One by one.
• Mardy Fish revealed his affinity for the Backstreet Boys, which, in light of all things here, is a more endearing than egregious error.
• Gavin Rossdale, Bush frontman but best known anymore as Mr. Gwen Stefani, is again in his chum Federer's box, this time in Cincinnati. Explicable, this pair of pals.

Rest assured, your resident music-meets-tennis maven will keep you apprised as these realms continue to merge. While cognizant that music favorites are completely arbitrary and debatable, let's just say this: It is wise to trust all of these players' shot selection more than their song selection.

Well ... most of them. But enough name-dropping for now.

—Jonathan Scott (@jonscott9)