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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.
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.
Whoa, there partner. You can’t read and understand the way the question was framed, this is the internet!
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.
She is the kind of person that wouldn’t disrespect an opponent by playing a lazy game, so 100% this.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You know I didn’t consider this as a problem where games and time approach infinity.
I know this is a joke thread, but I think this is a great example of a poorly designed survey question that charitable people would say ‘generates discussion’. I would say it enables confirmation bias and just creates animosity amongst people looking for reasons to dislike an imaginary other.
My instinct when I first saw reporting of this was, yeah I probably could. But that’s because I read the question as me being able to play until I won a point. If I even won one, even by a double fault, I win. When I said as much on social media people jumped on me. But here’s the thing, I think theres like a 99.8% chance that the world’s best Female tennis player wins any given point against me. I’m just expecting one shanked return from 500 efforts.
Then uproar. Because it’s only because she’s a woman. Except… Well there isn’t an equivalent question for Novak Djokovic! So people are jumping to conclude reasoning, and YouGov is formenting that by reporting on a shoddy question with no control to give us a benchmark. For the record I think on average I’d have to wait longer to win a point against the worlds best male tennis player, because they serve so much faster, but I don’t think I’d be waiting forever.
So people read the question and assume both that the question refers to a one point shoot out, and they already think the greater portion of men are misogynists. Well then that’s the explanation! It cannot be an ambiguous question interpreted differently!
And I’m not denying that for some people the worst explanation is unfortunately the correct one. But I do have an issue with people dismissing or ignoring fairly rational objections to the survey or interpretations of it because of their pre-existing biases.
“Do you think if you were playing your very best tennis, you could win a point off Serena Williams?” Was the wording.
Yes I think with enough games I could win a point. I’m playing my best tennis! Hell, I could win the whole damn game when she passes out from exhaustion and has to forfeit that match. The question sucks.
It’s like would I win a boxing match against a bear? Obviously I would win. A bear would use so many illegal moves I would be posthumously declared winner.
I think I might be able to convince her to let me get a point somehow. Maybe as a joke or make it seem like it’s the right thing to do like I’m a make a wish kid or something.
500 games in I suspect her to give away a point just to have it all end
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How many of these 8 men have seen her play? Or even know how to themselves?
Yes
