<p>“but i still say tennis.”</p>
<p>and your still using your crappy logic to decide things. you still think boxing and kickboxing is about who can punch the hardest, so your logic still says tennis is about who can hit the ball the hardest… damn mike tyson probably can think better than that.</p>
<p>what can i do for my arm? wait another day before i play? what helps so my arm can recover</p>
<p>As a long time XC and track runner, I still say wrestling.</p>
<p>taffy,</p>
<p>haha. you’re funny…well not really but…</p>
<p>i know boxing isn’t ONLY about hitting as hard as you can, but you can’t honestly say that isn’t the top skill/attribute to have in that sport. it’s a lot easier to hit as hard as you can in boxing and succeed than it is to hit as you can in tennis and succeed. in boxing you only have to control your own arm. in tennis its your arm, wrist, racquet, and then the ball. </p>
<p>i’ve also noticed that in boxing matches they basically talk about the “power punches” and how the boxer need to use that powerful right jab or hook or whatever else he/she has. in tennis you dont only hear about “oh and this player has the hardest serve on the tour and fastest groundstrokes”, you hear more of “this players first serve percentage is high” or “they move well” or “their volleys are solid”. in tennis, its great to have power, but you’re not gonna win with just that. now in boxing (though not the only skill you need), power does give you (i believe) a much much much greater advantage to win than it does in tennis.</p>
<p>and as for the ESPN rankings, well i didnt make them up so i cant really say why they are ranked like that. it was cool how they had the different aspects though. tennis got a 3 out of 10 for nerve…haha…cant really argue that one. thats pretty much what killed it. boxing won b/c of the straight up physical aspects like strength, durability, endurance and power. but tennis beat it in every other aspect, which were the ones dealing with more skill.</p>
<p>i also found these pretty interesting. gymnastics got a 10 for flexibility…no sh it. boxing came in 4th for nerve behind ski jumping (eh, somewhat understandable, i guess jumping off a cliff with twigs on your feet requires nerve), rodeo (it is pretty intimidating to ride an animal 5 times bigger and stronger than you), and number 1 was…auto racing…hahahahaha. ok i know that you’re going around 130 mph inches away from the car next to you, but it only takes nerve because you MIGHT crash, and if you do you MIGHT die. if not you are just cruisin. people have died in the other 3 sports, and at least with the other 3 you are guaranteed to get hit, fly, or ride a 300 ton animal (little exagerration). </p>
<p>table tennis and tennis came in 2 and 3 in handling behind baseball??? w t f. how is there more handling in baseball than the two tennis’s. in baseball you catch aim and throw ONCE every 5 or more minutes (unless you’re the pitcher). not that hard compared to the constant split second reactions in table tennis and tennis. whatever.</p>
<p>i didnt agree with the team sports getting the highest analytical aptitude scores either. they have more plays than individual sports such as tennis and fencing, which have more reactions and split second analytical decision that (to me) are harder to make. at least with plays you have some guidance.</p>
<p>i didnt expect ice hockey or football to be so high. football was 3rd overall…really? and ice hockey 2nd…what? and i didnt think soccer should be so low either. using only the sports from espn’s top 10 i would have ranked them…</p>
<p>1 tennis 2 basketball 3 boxing 4gymnastics 5 soccer 6wrestling 7 martial arts 8ice hockey 9 football 10 baseball</p>
<p>2 3 and 4 are pretty much tied to me.</p>
<p>and one more thing…notice how the top 4 sports are the ones dealing with the most, if not a lot, of the money and politics in sports and the most air time on ESPN (except for boxing). baseball’s the only one missing. maybe thats why the got ranked to high…hmmm…damn rich espn bastards…haha.</p>
<p>IRONMAN</p>
<p>I just did my first 1/2 ironman (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1mile run) yesterday, and it hurt like a ■■■■■■. I can’t even fathom how a full ironman would feel, though I plan on doing my first next summer.</p>
<p>pshhh. 1/2 an ironman. that’s pretty weak…jp. good luck next summer.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh really? That’s a pretty confident statement you’re making there. For one, unless you’ve boxed I don’t think you’re really in any sort of position to break downt he fundementals of throwing a punch the same way as a professional boxer. Secondly, there is a small matter of having to hit your OPPONENT with that punch. Last time I checked a tennis ball doesn’t have the ability to dodge, block or throw a counter punch. You decide (though you obviously have) what is harder, hitting a moving living target as hard as you can, or an inantimate ball.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You’re knocking auto racing for being number one in nerve? I don’t consider auto racing to be a sport because of the mechanical aspect, but I will never challenge the nerve it takes to compete in it. Personally, holding a car going at speed up upwards 230 mph inches away from another vehicle for 500 miles is a hell of alot more nerve wracking then riding a bull.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Now you’re just exposing your bias. It’s been said that hitting a 90 mile an hour slider is the hardest thing to do in all of sports and I agree. Yes, the tennis’s require “constant” split second decisions, but those decisions are already half made because you have to return the ball. In baseball you must decide whether or not the ***** is going to be a ball or a strike, adapt for break, swing and make contact with a bat that has significantly less surface area then does a tennis raquet. (side note: I think it can be argued that tennis technology has significantly helped improve the abilities of many tennis players, the standard equipment in baseball has remained elatively unchanged in the past hundred years.) Furthermore, fielding a ground ball in the field “once every 5 minutes” is just as hard as returning a volley, the fact that there may be a greater time in between the two in no way negates that. Plus, in baseball you sometimes have to deal with someone trying to take you out (i.e. turning a double play), something you never have to deal with in tennis.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Again, in tennis you have a slightly removed human aspect compared to team sports. running the point on a fast break, or quarterbacking a game requires the abilit to read as many as 6 different human beings movements, predict where they are going to be and make a split second decision based on those decisions. Sure, in tennis you have split second decisions one after the other, but the “play” is always the same, get the ball back over the net. If that isn’t a guideline to act under I don’t know what is. finally, for example football quarterbacks, face the aditional pressure of having a 280 pound d-end in your face while you’re making that decision, find me a tennis player wo faces that situation.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Compare the skills it takes to play tennis to those of Ice Hockey. strength: edge hockey.
eye-hand: edge hockey. not only are you skating on ice, but youhave to maintin constant control of the puck vs. a singular impact. also the skills necessary to take a slap shot are exactly the same as those required to strike a tennis ball but again with an instrument with decidedly less surface area.
nerve: yeah, puck going 100 miles an hour, tennis ball…hmmmn: Puck.
analytic skills: hockey, human element.
power: hockey, already discussed.
endurance: hockey…skating=harder then running, add in extra weight form padding and people hitting you, no competition.</p>
<p>there are more, but I’m pretty sure that hockey is a far and away winner.</p>
<p>to quote an excellent movie on HBO right now: you just got served.</p>
<p>and yes, the pun was intended.</p>
<p>Excellent post, toma :)</p>
<p>I don’t see why people continue to argue that tennis is the hardest sport to play. Elderly women play tennis recreationally - I’ve never seen one of them box or skate around on the ice for fun.</p>
<p>TOMADOG, </p>
<p>so when you posted earlier “COQUI: dispute those rankings. seriously” you basically wanted me to do that because you couldn’t make any points yourself and had to use everything i said? ok i guess i’ll do the same now too.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>yeah, we all know a tennis ball doesn’t move at all during the point right?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>well PERSONALLY i would rather drive a car going extremely fast than ride a pretty unpredictable animal that has no protection whatsoever if i fall and get trampled on. i’m not saying auto racing requires no nerves, but i think its just not as terrifying as riding a wild bull. seriously would you rather drive a car 200 mph around a track or get thrown on top of a raging bull? i’d pick the car…at least you can control the car.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>i already admitted i’m bias. haven’t you been keeping up with my posts? and though hitting a 90 mph slider may be difficult, hitting a 140 mph serve or 100mph forhand is a lot harder, especially since its isnt aimed at a tiny area right infront of you like a baseball is. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>in tennis you must CONSTANTLY judge and guess the speed of the ball coming at you, its spin, how “heavy” the bounce of the ball will be, the pace its coming at you with, AND then you have to do more than just “make contact” with the ball. you cant just swing for the best. you must tweak every movement in your body and especially your hands. you have to hit the ball a certain way for every shot, which means turning the face of the racquet a certain way, or snapping your wrist at a certain moment. in baseball there are a lot less ways to hit a ball than in tennis. in tennis you can hit an angle shot, topspin, flat, heavy spin, kick, slice, underspin, and many more. and the only significant technology improvement in tennis is the racquet. and actaully many of the improvements made to racquets makes it even harder to take of advantage of those improvements. though they can be more effective, it takes even more skill to properly use them to your advantage. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>haha. i’m sure its not. you have A LOT of time to get ready to hit ONE ball thats coming at 90 mph RIGHT at YOU. you have less than a second to hit a series of ball that are going all over the place at different speeds and directions. of course the amount of time should be considered. how can you say its harder to hit a ball you have minutes to prepare for than continuously hitting balls that you have less than a second to prepare? and someone “rarely” trying to take you out has nothing to do with handling.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>these are simply special occasions where the players must improvise what they are going to do. in tennis, this is a constant dilemma.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>i could say that the “play”/“guideline” for basketball is getting the ball in the hoop, or for football its running the ball across a line. its HOW you make that happen thats the hard part. in tennis its constant split decisions you have to make. you have no preset notion of what your opponent is going to hit or do a lot of the time, and you can’t create a set play to carry out. well you could but after you hit the first ball its no longer in your hands. the best you can do in tennis is have a “strategy”. for example, look for the short balls to attack the net, or hit at a certain pace your opponent can’t handle well. but you can’t say “ok. first shot down the line, 2nd crosscourt, and third is going to be a dropshot.” 99 times out of 100 you’ll never be able to carry out your play as planned. </p>
<p>but in basketball and football, plays are made that can be carried out according to plan most of the time and with the help of a slew of coaches (esp in football). and a quarterback has people protecting him from those 300 lbs guys. in football you have so many rules that allow the offense to carry out there play (no contact before the ball is caught, pass interference…) do you ever see a playbook or dry erase board on a tennis court? nope. you just have your brain, body, strategy and reactions.</p>
<p>and as for hockey</p>
<p>eye-hand: when you hit a puck, most of the time it isnt coming at you 100mph. you get to stop it with your puck and then hit it, or its conveniently passed to you.
nerve: i’m pretty sure its the fact that you can get hit thats nerve wrecking, not the puck, given that (as you mentioned) you have a whole bunch of padding. and i admitted tennis doesnt require nerve.
analytic: tennis is way harder.
endurance: hockey players arent always skating hard, they do relax and kind of glide along. i don’t think skating is harder either. skating 100 yards is a lot easier than running 100 yards. and i’ve never heard of hockey players cramping in their legs as much as players do. and of course, SUBSTITUTION is a great advantage to have. but you dont have that benefit in tennis now do you.</p>
<p>ECLIPTICA,</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>i already addressed the fact that tennis is deceptive in that you may be able to dink the ball over and be ok. but its much harder to be sufficiently decent at the sport. the reason old people can play is because you have can just stand there and dink the ball over the net, but it doesnt mean you are good at it. i totally understand that boxing is much more physically brutal cuz you’re getting you a ss beat, but like i said earlier, anyone can make a physically brutal sport up. i can create crushball where you run up a mountain while gettin beat by sticks and clobbered by rocks. so would that be the harderst sport since its the most physically punishing? if you think that a sport is hard based on how brutally you get hit, thats pretty sad.</p>
<p>toma, </p>
<p>another thing. after a month of boxing by tennis player, the tennis player may lose, but at least he would be able to get punches in and last a few rounds. but a boxer after a month of tennis probably wouldn’t score a since point. the boxer wouldn’t be as “knocked up” as the tennis player, but he would suck a lot more at the sport. and he also wouldn’t be as tired because the points wouldnt last more than one shot since he’d suck so bad.</p>
<p>cute pun though.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What? No, I never said that. The title of the thread is “HARDEST sports to play.” Tennis is not hard to play, anyone can do it. There’s a difference between hardest to play and hardest to be successful at. Tennis is easy to play, but hard to be “great” at, boxing and ice hockey, on the other hand, both have a steep learning curve and are hard to be successful at.
That’s the point I was trying to make that everyone completely misunderstood.</p>
<p>Waterpolo, its insane</p>
<p>Tennis is easy to play if you are socializing or playing a novice player Ecliptica. It’s not so easy when you’re facing a skilled player who can hit the ball in any angle, with whatever type of spin, in whatever direction of the court he/she wants.</p>
<p>Even Roger Federer says that tennis is a brutally hard sport so I urge you to think twice before being as complacent as to say that “tennis is easy to play”.</p>
<p>Good day to you.</p>
<p>ecliptica</p>
<p>anyone can box, just give two people gloves and tell them to hit each other. of course not of people like to do that in their spare time because its so brutal and hurts. and who wants to physically beat up their friend? and hockey, well its a lot harder to randomly find an ice rink to play. though people would still suck if they randomly decided to play a game of hockey, they could still just play. its easy to just technically be “playing” any sport, but its hard to play it CORRECTLY and at a high level.</p>
<p>though you may not realize it, theres just a steep of a curve in being succesful at tennis as there is at any other sport. </p>
<p>as far as just playing, noone wants to box their friends, and its harder to find a rink and gear and enough people to play hockey. so of course more people “play” tennis for the heck of it. </p>
<p>“good day to you.” -man<em>on</em>fire haha. i’m sorry but that quote just made me laugh. it just sounded funny…a bit pompous…but still funny. and at least man<em>on</em>fire’s on my side…</p>
<p>OOoooohhhh!</p>
<p>I have played tennis competitively for the last four years. At first its pretty difficult, learning to hit the ball correctly is not something you can just pick up on your own. If you ever go to the park, you can clearly distinguish competitive tennis players from recreational tennis players ( not only based on skill level). Which is something very rare in most sports. Physically it is not super demanding, but its difficult to learn.</p>
<p>Wow, everyone is just listing their sport.
I’ll jump on the bandwagon:
Who here has actually hit a golf ball where they meant it to go? Two swings in a row? </p>
<p>Tiger is the 2nd most powerful celeb. behind oprah for a reason folks hahaha</p>
<p>Everything coqui said applies (maybe even more so) to golf, but I’m not going to say it again because when s/he did, s/he sounded like an arrogant arse.</p>
<p>No friggin **** tennis gets harder when you play better people–in which sport exactly does that not hold true? You would get wrecked by the world’s top lawn bowling bowler player guy even though it’s a really simple activity (yeah, not a sport).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, I was going to post, but mesa answered it for me. </p>
<p>For a beginning player: Tennis. Is. Easy. To. Play.</p>
<p>“For a beginning player: Tennis. Is. Easy. To. Play.” </p>
<p>Not correctly. Anybody can hit the ball, but most people cannot hit the tennis ball correctly. Anybody can move around, but most people do not have correct footwork. Anybody can hit the ball back and forth, but few can serve it. In fact, most people don’t even understand how the scoring works. There is more to the sport than most people think.</p>
<p>yep. sorry i sounded like an arrogant arse. we all do at some point. but if anything, boxing is the easiest sport to play by ecliptica’s definition. i mean you just put gloves on people and throw them in a ring and say “ok hit”. if they start lightly tapping each other on the face, then i guess you can say they are technically boxing right? but are they really doing justice to the sport?</p>
<p>and dont even try and bring golf into the hardest sport discussion. and everything i said doesnt apply to golf. i mean, you just stand there in golf. you get to friggin drive to your next shot. cmon now. it may be hard to hit the ball and place it where you want to, but thats all you do. you’re still, the ball’s still, and you get even more time then you do in baseball to hit it. you cant compare golf to tennis at all, except rich people play both a lot.</p>
<p>just my 2 cents: over the years I have 3 kids who have been involved in: lacrosse, ice hockey, roller hockey, volleyball, soccer, basketball, football, wrestling, tennis, baseball (little league only). Without question, wrestling is the most difficult. Even directly following football season when my S was in great shape, wrestling practices and matches are still very difficult. IMO none of the others even comes close.</p>