Grant user access to limited number of tables in MySQL

Run them as two individual GRANT statements:

GRANT SELECT ON testdb.fruits TO joe@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'pass';
GRANT SELECT ON testdb.sports TO joe@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'pass';

The MySQL GRANT syntax only permits one object in the priv_level position:, though it may use a * as a wildcard:

GRANT
    priv_type [(column_list)]
      [, priv_type [(column_list)]] ...
    ON [object_type] priv_level
    TO user_specification [, user_specification] ...
    [REQUIRE {NONE | ssl_option [[AND] ssl_option] ...}]
    [WITH with_option ...]

object_type:
    TABLE
  | FUNCTION
  | PROCEDURE

priv_level:
    *
  | *.*
  | db_name.*
  | db_name.tbl_name
  | tbl_name
  | db_name.routine_name

The part below does not appear to work on MySQL 5.5. How to “subtract” privileges in MySQL addresses why.

To grant SELECT on all tables then selectively revoke, you could do:

GRANT SELECT ON testdb.* TO joe@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'pass';
REVOKE ALL PRIVILEGES ON testdb.tblname FROM joe@localhost;

This seems to be an odd method though, and I think I would individually GRANT rather than individually REVOKE.