this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2025
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Winning a point is a very low bar. You don't have to beat her. You don't have to win a set or a game. You just have to score a single point. All it takes is a single mistake from your opponent to win a point. With enough time even the best will make a mistake, and tennis matches are long.
The shortest possible game is 4 points. A set without a tie breaker has 6 games. A women's tournament match is best 2 sets of 3. So at minimum a match of tennis has 48 points. You only need one.
If you're passible enough to return the ball some of the time, and do a valid serve you will probably win a point at some point. She may be one of the best tennis players of all time, but she's not infallible. Its really unlikely she wouldn't mess up at least once.
Specifically, in a match of minimum 48 points to have a chance of 80% of scoring a single point you need to be at least as good as 3.3% of her. Or in other words, she can be 30 times better than you. If your expectation is just a 50% chance to score a single point, it is enough to be 1.5% good as her, so she can be 67 times better than you.
Sex aside, i wouldn't assume pro athletes to be 67x better than i am in many sports. Usain Bolt is not running 67x faster than i am, nor is Michael Phelps swimming 67x faster than i am.
In other words: This study is not a test for the arrogance of men, but rather a test for the statistical aptitude of humans. Which general is terrible.
Athletic skill:athletic feat isn't a linear scale - Phelps might not be 67x faster than you but he is absolutely 67x(+++) more skilled. There's pretty much zero chance you pick up a win vs him unless he dies mid race or something
You underestimate how much better experts are to everyone else. For chess, for example, the Elo rating for a beginner who knows the rules is about 500, a weak club player around 1200, a good club player around 1700, a master around 2200, and the world champion around 2800.
For each of these jumps the difference is about 70 times better, as in the person with the weaker rating is expected to win one out of 70 times.
So the world champion is not just 70 times better than a beginner, they are a few million times better.
I'm not saying tennis works exactly the same way as chess, but people really underestimate just how much better some people are at some things. At that difference, the beginner and the champ could play games 24/7 for centuries and the beginner would never win one game.
The idea that 67x better means a 67x linear increase in speed is nonsense. Usain Bolt does not need to be 67x faster than you, it's enough to be somewhat faster in all 67 out of 67 races, which he would be.
Usain Bolt would also win 67 out of 67 races against the second best sprinter in the world. The mode is completely different. In the same wake for chess. Whether you win a game or not is a culmination of dozens of turns. So for chess it is more closer to a match of tennis, rather than scoring a point. And i am pretty sure that i could play a game of chess against Magnus Carlsen himself and beat at least one stone, while loosing catastrophically otherwise.
It's more like playing chess with Magnus and making one move that the analysis judged a better move, since losing one piece of material might be advantageous for winning. And while that may not take centuries to happen, it is sure not a 50/50 chance or even a 1% chance.
Or in a race with Usain Bolt, you would not take even one of your steps faster than any of his steps, either.
don't forget that it's possible to have an entire classroom of people so utterly inept in the field of motor skills and hand eye coordination that not one of them could serve or return a serve in the whole 5 days dedicated to tennis.
Unless she kills you before you can score the point.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatalities_while_playing_tennis
blank page hmmmmm
It's really hard to get the button presses in fast enough in a professional tennis match
Out of curiosity, I looked this up:
"Richard Wertheim (1983) - A tennis official who died after being struck in the groin by a tennis ball during a match. He fell backward, hit his head on the court, and suffered a fatal brain injury."
Definitely would rather die instantly.
"contributed to" vs "killing me instantly"
I wish I had the reading comprehension to find the obvious difference between these two statements, but alas it is impossible no one is that comprehensive.
The survey is specifying one game though, not a set or a tournament. I don't know the rules of tennis, but i don't think Serena will let a single point through.
Do we know though if the survey clarified, that by game they mean a game in the Tennis sense, so up to 4 points, or if it means the typical way the game is played, which is in a match of 3?
E.g. when i talk about playing a round of counter-strike i also mean to play a game of 15/15 and not a single 3 minute round. Meanwhile in football the term is also a "match" but we call the halves halves and not "games".
The way terms are used differ from popular language and specific language, so it needs to be clarified.
It's very vague: https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/344ce84b-a48d-11e9-8e40-79d1f09423a3/question/4d73bd62-a48f-11e9-aee6-6742cfe83f15/gender
Whoa, there partner. You can’t read and understand the way the question was framed, this is the internet!
Fair. If I'm serving, maybe I wait until she falls asleep and that's how I get my point
She is the kind of person that wouldn't disrespect an opponent by playing a lazy game, so 100% this.
The question is "Could you win a point in a game of tennis...". Technically it doesn't specify that it has to be a single game. You could play a million games against her, and as long as you score one point, you still "won a point in a game of tennis". Notably, it also says "could" rather than "would" so its just asking for a >0% possibility, under any circumstance. She is still human, so theres enough factors that something "could" allow a win. Is this completely overthinking this and going against the spirit of the question? Yes, but we're already talking about the absurd hypothetical of putting a random non-athlete in a potentially infinite number of games against a professional athlete, so...
Tennis isn't played one game at a time. It is played one match at a time. Any point is one point in a game.
I've just gone and copied the wording from the link...
If you actually had the reading comprehension that you claim you would have noticed that only men were surveyed.
Not true either, someone has linked the survey question above 12% of men said yes, 3% of women
Sure, but the cited 12% only took results from men.
If I am delusional let it be known that its in an overwhelmingly uncommon way.
You're the one who decided to go with personal attacks. If you want to insult someone at least give them the courtesy of reading their username.
Also you're on the silly meme community why are you taking this so seriously?
I feel like if the best reason one has for how they might be able to score a point on her is "but she could make a mistake" they've kind of conceded that it's not actually possible.
Exactly. It's basically some "infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters" shit.
"Well if I had enough time eventually they will make a mistake and I'd get a point on a technicality so yeah, I could totally do it!"
This person remembers they have to serve too, right? And actually return the ball. They won't win just standing there and praying.
I take it you’re not a tennis fan. You absolutely can win not only a point but a game (4 points) just by standing there. It’s called a double fault and they happen all the time.
In 2014 Serena Williams lost a match after double faulting 4 times in a row to lose a game. She is not immune to double faults!
I don't know if one in 8 men even play tennis. I guess I would hit the ball but would it get over the net?
I know when I did tennis in gym class in high school I struggled to figure out how to keep the ball in the court.
You know I didn't consider this as a problem where games and time approach infinity.
You see, Serena Williams has a preset kill limit. Knowing her weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at her until she reached her limit and shut down.