Could Serena Willams beat any of the top 20 men.

The Game Room
121

This is a question that I’ve seen asked and answered on this board many, many, many times (and which I’ve tackled myself on the American Ninja Warrior thread more times than I ever cared to. Like, in my lifetime.). So many, in fact, that I’m now really suspicious. Someone here insecure at the idea of a highly successful female jock (or insecure at the idea that there could be someone better than her)?

Anyway, I remember John McEnroe being asked on TV about possible matches against the Williams sisters (this was fairly early in their careers, when there was a lot of hype and sibling rivalry and Venus was on the same level as her sister). As I remember, he 1. hated the idea, 2. couldn’t believe anyone at all was seriously proposing it, 3. would have to be forced into it at gunpoint, and 4. would look terrible no matter how it turned out (“The older I get, the better I used to be.”) Nobody pressed him, and the issue died a quiet death. And now someone, for some unfathomable reason, felt the need to pick at the over-decade old scab again. Link to the interview here.

He’s a straight shooter. Never BSes or sugarcoats and doesn’t tolerate it from others. There was another time a reporter relayed a quote from Jeff Tarrango to him, something about how he would’ve had more success if he was more driven or whatever crap. McEnroe’s response was that he didn’t take advice from players who never accomplished anything, and his advice to Tarrango was to “Go home and get a life.” It’s an extremely bad idea to spit on him and tell him it’s raining, if you catch my drift. The problem with this was that, like many other straight shooters, he never learned the art of evasion. Someone like, say, Pete Sampras or Roger Federer would’ve danced around “Why say female player?” easily. But McEnroe not only had to refute it, he gave a hard number. No big deal for tennis fans in the know (or for those for whom it’s always been a nonissue, like, oh, ME), but in today’s incredibly politically charged culture, not much of a surprise HuffPo sunk their claws into it.

The worst thing about this is that Serena Williams is closing in on some amazing, awesome, unbelievable milestones, and then this has to throw a cloud over it.

So to answer the OP: No…but she doesn’t have to. Can just mentally copy-paste that response into any and all future threads on this subject.

122

Again, McEnroe isn’t the one who raised the issue.

123

Tursunov isn’t exactly a no-name in the world of tennis (unless you compare him with McEnroe). I know of him, and I’m a casual tennis spectator at best. Sure, he’s way past his prime, but the man is a former world No.20 and has won seven ATP titles back in the day.

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while I agree with you, I find it interesting that Tursunov is younger than Serena (and Federer).

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John McEnroe, a professional tennis commentator, needs to stick to the facts and not give his opinion about tennis players when asked.

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Fair point. We watch quite a bit of tennis in our household, but his is not a familiar name to me.

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Why? He was a legendary player. He is smart and opinionated. If he can’t speak about tennis players, who can?

128

I think you didn’t pick up on the sarcasm.

129

You might be right.

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That’s what got the sisters in that match with smoking dude. He was ranked 203 and accepted their challenge.

131

Another point McEnroe brought up in a later interview with Dan Patrick: Why is it always tennis? They HAD a Battle of the Sexes! It was huge! It was landmark! And then Jimmy Connors beat Martina Navratilova pretty easily despite giving up a handicap, and then whasisface beat…Venus, I think…wait, did that one happen first?..and, as I recall no one gave a rip, and rightfully so. Not only is it done, it’s completely played out. The only times I’ve ever heard it come up in any other sport where when Annika Sorenstam played that one PGA tournament event (mainly just for fun; didn’t really expect anything to come of it, which is exactly what happened) and of course Danica Patrick, who IIRC had some modest success and then quietly faded out. I vaguely recall a hockey goalkeeper named “Manon Rheume”, but she was a complete flash in the pan. (Oh yeah, a bunch of internet loudmouths made some noise about Rhonda Rousey and Floyd Mayweather, but as the principals in question never did, I think this can be safely ignored.)

The WNBA doesn’t give a damn about intersex matchups. Neither does any boxing organization in the world. Or any MMA organization. Or any judo, karate, jiu jitsu, taekwondo etc. organization. Or gymnastics. Or track. Or field. Or fencing. Or soccer or field hockey or water polo or lacrosse or racquetball or badminton or curling or skiing or figure skating or…you get the picture. So why always tennis, and for that matter why does John McEnroe seem to always get the brunt of it?

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One factor could be that you do often see inter-sex ball exchanges, as in mixed doubles.

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Mixed doubles is 1 Male 1 Female against 1 Male 1 Female. Its not 2 men v 2 women, or two women versus 1 man 1 women or any other combination.
I think a mixed doubles team would beat a women’s doubles team easily. And lose badly to a men’s doubles team.

Mied doubles also sees many players who are past their primes going deep into Grand Slam Tournaments due to the reletively poor state of competition. Martina Navratilova won the mixed doubles US Open in 2006, at the age of 50. The men’s champion that year was Roger Federer, born in 1981, when Martina alread had been No 1 and had won 4 Grand Slam titles. The women’s champion was Sharapova, born in 1987, when Martina had already won 16 Gran Slam singles.

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Actually, doubles hides almost all the weaknesses of female players vs. males, so it’s a lot closer to being a fair battle. There has been a battle of the sexes doubles match and the women won easily, mainly because one of the men was a very old Bobby Riggs.

There’s also been a sort of battle of the sexes beach volleyball match, although again, the men’s team was handicapped by having Shaq on their side.

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As for why people are most interested in battle of the sexes tennis as opposed to other sports, that’s due to the success of the marketing of tennis. Few women’s sports attract much interest, but women’s tennis has been an exception. Even non-tennis fans know the names of the female legends of the sport. Very few women in other sports achieve that level of fame, and even when they do, they tend to be outliers. And what happens when people think about the legends of a sport? They think about how one legend would match up with another. And even if you know that Roger Clemens would strike out Ty Cobb nine times out of ten, you’d still pay good money to see it. SAme goes for male vs. female tennis matches.

I’d pay to see McEnroe vs Serena Williams in a heartbeat.

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Bill Tilden’s alleged advice on how to play mixed doubles - “hit as hard as you can to the woman”.

It’s tennis for several reasons, one being that King vs. Riggs was a huge deal, and the woman won. Dog bites woman isn’t news; woman bites dog is.

Another is that Serena Williams is an incredibly strong tennis player, for a woman. Is she strong enough to beat a top man? Very few other individual sports have stars who are plausibly matchable against a man. Every so often somebody wants to test if it is really plausible. It isn’t, but since women have made such huge strides in sport as well as the rest of society, the question seems to recur.

In order for women to compete successfully in a sport, the rules have to be set up to play to their strengths. Women’s gymnastics is a very different sport from men’s gymnastics, and the events don’t overlap very much.

Is that fair? Who cares? They’re different sports.

Regards,
Shodan

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It’s actually somewhat common in the US for people to claim that the women’s team could compete with/beat the men’s team. I suppose it’s because the USWNT has won multiple world championships combined with a large percentage of the viewing audience only watching Olympics/World Cup and not being able to identify good play

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Because tennis is the only sport where the women’s division is actually popular.

Tennis has popular stars, the ladies compete in the 4 majors alongside the men, getting national press and TV coverage. It has been this way since the 70’s. The LPGA is a distant second, with a couple of notable names, but the level of interest is much much lower. The WNBA is practically a non-entity, with a tiny fraction of the interest of the NBA. Next is Soccer, where we have a great US Women’s national team, with a handful of stars, but that’s just one team.

The last bit of women’s sport that garners interest is the Olympics, which happens every 4 years with an everchanging cadre of athletes.

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I think women’s gymnastics and figure skating beat out the men in terms of popularity, both in and out of the Olympics. Granted not the audience of the NFL, but enough to keep it on t.v. during the winter. Beach volleyball (both men and women) is on tv quite a bit, too.

And if you talk “popularity” in terms of interest and money spent, cheerleading and team dance for girls is every bit as popular in these parts as youth soccer and football. Annoyingly so if you count how many freaking fundraisers they do.