<p>If you can’t even see how tennis compares, then you have obviously never played with anyone who is any good. People who bash tennis for being easy are really just displaying their lack of even a basic understanding of the sport.<br>
Mentally, I’ve heard many athletes say that tennis and boxing are really in a league of their own in terms of difficulty. You have to hit every single solitary shot. There’s no subbing. There’s no coaching during the match. There’s no relying on anyone but yourself! Physically, sure you run tons in a lot of sports, but tennis is constant sprinting for an indefinite amount of time (think about men’s five-set match…that goes on for HOURS and HOURS). Plus, in terms of skills involved, almost nothing measures up to tennis. There’s a ton of different shots, a lot of different ways to hit each shot (what kind of spin, etc.), and an infinite amount of court positions/ situations…strategy can be very complicated…the best players are thinking of the shot they are going to hit a couple of shots before. Plus, at a high level the ball is hit extremely hard. Andy Roddick can hit serves 150 miles an hour and above. And it’s not just the serves that are hit incredibly hard. And all of this doesn’t even include all the “intangibles” needed to be a good player.<br>
So for tennis…OR FOR ANY OTHER SPORT, unless you really know what you are talking about, don’t diss it!</p>
<p>sweet. someones on my side. told ya. tennis is the hardest. all you need for boxing is big muscles, big balls, and a high pain tolerance. oooooo…</p>
<p>i forget the name of the sport but its basically playing volleyball but with your FEET. its really popular in east asia. that has got to be the hardest sport ever.</p>
<p>coqui, wow… you completely missed what i implied. tennis meat heads :D</p>
<p>you said boxing is about being strong, and punching hard, so i used your logic to say that tennis is just about running back and forth and swinging a racket hard… and you completely missed it. your unbelievably biased to defend the sport youve probably been playing since the day you got cut from the soccer team.</p>
<p>As far as skill, Tennis takes alot of it, yes. But are the best athletes in the world tennis players? I think not. Basketball and Soccer are the most intense and demanding sports. The coordination, endurance, muscular strength, pure speed, skill, and TEAMWORK required is unparalleled in any other sport. The physical contact in both sports is insane, and the risk for injury is incredibly high. Consider this-6-6 Manu Ginobili soars ten feet in the air only to get thrown to the floor by 6-11 TRASHeed wallace, and Manu STILL makes the basket. I am a pro tennis fan and have played the sport, but I fail to see how anything done by federer, safin, roddick, etc can match the athleticism in a play like that. </p>
<p>Oh and I wasn’t saying that triathlon is the hardest because obviously, though physically demanding, it isn’t, I was just saying it’s the coolest (in my obviously unbiased opinion :))</p>
<p>haha. i got what you implied. but most people are smart enough to defend their sports instead of just repeating what another said. and i said i was biased. i know i am, but with good reason. </p>
<p>haha, cut from the soccer team. yeah sure. i played soccer. i was actually pretty good at it. mvp on my team. it was fun for the first few games, then it just got boring and pointless. i wanted to play a sport where i get to use every part of my body, not just my legs and head. i’ll admit its not exactly easy to handle a ball with your feet, but the sport as a whole is way too slow paced for me. if you can walk or even possibly sit down while the plays and action are taking place without it having any effect on the game, well thats when you know the sports a little slow. (ie soccer and baseball)</p>
<p>and as for basketball and soccer being more intense and demanding sports that require more “coordination, endurance, muscular strength, pure speed, skill, and TEAMWORK”…well thats just bs. tennis requires a lot more coordination because you aren’t just using your legs or hands to control a ball, you are using your hands to control a racquet to control a much smaller, faster, and unpredictable ball. endurance? well most matches last just as long if not longer than soccer games or basketball games with just as much physical activity. and tennis players can’t get subbed or rest half as much as soccer and basketball players can. and they are the only ones playing. i will say that basketball players have more “pure, brute strength” than tennis players, but tennis players use more coordination with their body to transfer their wieght into the shot to create a lot of power behind the ball. and pure speed? tennis is nothing but sprinting for the ball every second. soccer involves a lot of sprinting, and so does basketball, but they aren’t used ALL the time like during a tennis point. lot more skill is needed for tennis and TEAMWORK is what makes soccer and basketball somewhat easier physically and mentally. you can rely on other players if you’re hurt or tired or not playing well. other players help you and give you support. not in tennis. its you and no one else.</p>
<p>tennis definately requires the most skill and coordination…you have to learn how to place the ball…1 inch can make the difference between winning and losing a match…it’s so complex</p>
<p>I would say cross country running would be the most demanding. After all it’s not rare to see someone throw up right after a race, or collapse. How many other sports can say they have a sport that demanding?</p>
<p>people throw up during other sports all the time. cross country is definitely damanding. no doubt. but it requires no special skill. you’re just training your body to run as fast and far as it can. a lot of people know how to run. given they cant run as far or fast as XC runners can, but thats just a matter of how often you run and how far. it physically draining, but only because its made to be. you’re supposed to run this long distance thats meant to break your down. the same could be done if you require that basketball games, soccer games, or tennis matches go on for at least 10 hours. the player of those sports will be just as drained. however, the games have a set time or score one must reach to win, which makes them different. XC is made to make you want to die when you finish, no matter how good you are.</p>
<p>Lacrosse is really demanding. Full on body contact of football with running of soccer and all out sprinting of basketball. You do the math. Lacrosse is really mental too, requires a lot of communication with your team. Try playing goalie. Stopping a 3 inch ball at 80 mph would make you crap your pants. </p>
<p>Everyone is forgetting motocross. Riding it myself, I can tell you, doing a 30 minute moto plus 2 laps, twice in one day, or more, is one of the most exhausting things. Tests your cardiovascular conditioning as well as muscle conditioning. Motocross really tests your the bodies ability to fight off lactic acid production as well as keeping your heart going. In the 70’s, motocross was the #2 most demanding sport, right behind soccer, although many could argue now a days (especially with the jumps we do now a days) that motocross could be the #1 demanding sport.</p>
<p>Well, well, let’s add another sport to this argument…</p>
<p>Ultimate Frisbee</p>
<p>Anyone here ever play? Ultimate is really a unique sport, and it’s very demanding. Players and run as far in one game as a soccer player does, but with the disc, it’s just on a different level of gameplay. I play on a team at my school, and I have to say, we train harder in our sport than most other teams do. I think strategy is a lot more important in disc than, say, water polo,not necessarily boxing or whatever. And it also hasthe running content of a game of soccer. Sides change just as fast, if not faster, and there are so many ways to throw the disc, and you have to know what to do to block them all. It’s a mesh between soccer and football, but with a frisbee.</p>
<p>It’s intense.</p>
<p>Anyone else ever play?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Are you sure that soccer and basketball have “insane” levels of injury potential? What about football? In the NFL, Jack “The Assassin” Tatum paralyzed a man on the field with a vicious hit. I don’t know of any FIFA or NBA player that lost the use of his lower body during a match. Despite all the protection, RBs rarely last more than 10 years in the NFL, and often encounter severe knee and head problems later in life. Sure. Manu Ginobli may throw himself into the air, but at least Shaq isn’t running full speed at him when he goes up for the block. </p>
<p>As for the most difficult sport, I’d pick boxing and cycling.</p>
<p>ultimate frisbee and motocross…haha…</p>
<p>no offense…all in good, biased fun…</p>
<p>I do not mean potential for injury-that is not a fair assesment of the difficulty of a sport. Distance runners probably have more injury problems than most other sports (I’ve had 4 stress fractures, many experiences w/ tendonitis, other things), yet it is not the most difficult sport. What I meant to say is that the best athletes I believe are basketball, soccer, and certain football players. I neglected to mention football players in my previous response, but in the NFL, the average player is responsible for knowing over 200 plays. Cornerbacks and receivers must be at the top of their game physically and mentally, the latter often being a consistent problem (Braylon Edwards dropping easy catches, yet making seemingly impossible ones). As a cyclist, I will say that it is definitely NOT the hardest sport-though it is one of the most expensive :(. I think calling Bo Jackson (notwithstanding injuries) one of if not THE greatest athlete of all time is a fair assesment (heisman winner, all american in track and baseball, MLB all star, averaging 5.4 yards/carry, rushing over 200 yds on monday night football, etc, etc), but I don’t think any tennis feat can compare to what Bo did.</p>
<p>Swimming</p>
<p>It has, as far as I can tell, the most grueling hours and longest season of any sport out there. You are also working out in a completely unnatural environment that greatly deprives you of oxygen and requires body positioning that even the fastest swimmers often struggle with.</p>
<p>yes! kudos to u cswim06 swimming is a tough sport, because we gotta move thru water, and the resistance costs a lot of energy. an average of 8000-8500 yards a day (for single practices) and like, 13,000 for doubles puts huge amounts of stress on our shoulders, and for breastrokers, the knees.</p>
<p>chess is also a very tough sport, it gives ppl headaches, haha, j/k</p>
<p>I gave up on all physical sports;I got hurt way to much.</p>
<p>swimming. by FAR</p>
<p>couple of points:</p>
<p>1) Dear sweet jesus did someone try to claim that ULTIMATE FRISBEE is the hardest sport to play??? that is simply laughable. I guarentee you take any varsity sport such as football or basketball, give them two weeks and/or someone capable of throwing a frisbee and they will scrape you.</p>
<p>2) The ongoing tennis vs. everyone else debate. Yes, tennis does require a large degree of skill, athleticism and endurance. However, the argument that if you took a talented tennis player and say a talented football player and made them switch sports the tennis player would be better at football then the the footballer at tennis is stupid. Tennis is a sport based upon countless repetitions, so in that way, yes, I suppose it is ‘harder’ to become a good tennnis player then football player. However, this does not make the sport itself harder. Anyone with the requisite natural talent and mental toughness can turn themselves into an excellent tennis player. You’re telling me that if you gave Mike Vick a tennis racket at age 5 and made him practice everyday he wouldn’t compete with Roddick? Tennis is definitely a challenging game, I will not debate that and the ongoing argument has actually risen my own appreciation of tennis. However, I will not agree that a tennis match is harder then either a) a boxing match b) a wrestling match c) a football game for the simple reason that the amount of physical punishment absorbed in any of those three is miles away from that sustained during a tennis match. </p>
<p>3) My own argument for overall toughest sport would have to go to wrestling (though it breaks my heart since I play football). Wrestling combines the extreme training of XC, with the mano-e-mano aspect of boxing, plus the extreme body control of gymnastics and to top it all off: you have to wear a singlet. However, in football’s defense, you must admit that in terms of having to adapt to different situations constantly the NFL has very few peers…though props to soccer.</p>
<p>4) My own little tangent here: Any sport such as XC, rowing or gymnastics, swimming, etc… really can’t qualify as the “hardest” sport because you are not physically competing against someone else. To clarify, no one is PHYSICALLY attempting to stop you from achieving your victory, i.e. no one tries to tackle you during a XC race. </p>
<p>5) To the person who claimed that: “tennis players use more coordination with their body to transfer their wieght into the shot to create a lot of power behind the ball [then basketball players]” I laugh. Try weaving between two defenders and then pulling a 360, fall away, switch hands lay-up. If you’re saying that doesn’t require as much coordination as starting from a solitary, standstill serve you’re on the rock.</p>
<p>“swimming, etc… really can’t qualify as the ‘hardest’ sport because you are not physically competing against someone else”</p>
<p>that is precisely why swimming is a tough sport, you have no one else to motivate you on, you have to push yourself, and that’s a hard thing to do sometimes</p>