Questions you've always wanted answered

[Gavin Chipper]

Also, people DO die like that. Sometimes it's not the punch that kills you; it's hitting your head on the hard pub car park ground. I've ended several like that.

I'm well aware*, I just wasn't sure of the mechanism whereby everyone doesn't

I think in real life people don't pass out like that.

[Gavin Chipper]

Foley was mentioned in the above thread which got me thinking who in their right mind thinks when you bite into a magnum ice cream the noise you hear is real?

What noise? You get imaginary noises in your head when you have a Magnum?

[Callum Todd]

One of the concerns in combat sports is the damage of knocked out fighters hitting their head on the canvas as they fall. There's a great video of a Muay Thai ref showing some amazing reactions to catch a falling fighter's head before he hits the deck; incredible save.

[Fiona T]

One of the things that's often raised by those who are against mandating the wearing of cycle helmets is that more lives would be saved if everyone wore a helmet all the time. You'd save more lives by mandating the wearing of helmets for walking down stairs than you would for riding a bike.

(As an aside there's an interesting podcast here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001n21k )

[Gavin Chipper]

One of the things that's often raised by those who are against mandating the wearing of cycle helmets is that more lives would be saved if everyone wore a helmet all the time. You'd save more lives by mandating the wearing of helmets for walking down stairs than you would for riding a bike.

Citation needed.

[Fiona T]

One of the things that's often raised by those who are against mandating the wearing of cycle helmets is that more lives would be saved if everyone wore a helmet all the time. You'd save more lives by mandating the wearing of helmets for walking down stairs than you would for riding a bike.

Citation needed.

https://www.rospa.com/campaigns-and-fun ... r-stairs#1

In the UK, over 700 people per year die from falling down stairs. A further 43,000 are hospitalised.

It doesn't say how many of the deaths (or injuries) are from head injuries, but https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.117 ... 8617720948 suggests that 42% of intoxicated people and 30.5% of sober people have such injuries. Lets go with a third.


There are an average of 109 cyclist deaths on the roads every year. Most of these involve collisions with other motor vehicles, for which a helmet provides limited protection.

https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/9/3/266
This article suggests the % of head injuries for cyclists decreased from 27.9% (n = 3070) in 1995/96 to 20.4% (n = 2154) in 2000/01. The decrease is credited partly to increased use of cycle helmets.

There's little doubt that a cycle helmet decreases your chance of a head injury if your head hits the ground. If it's an area that interests you, listen to the podcast I linked - there's some good points made. TL;DR - wear a cycle helmet.

[Gavin Chipper]

I might listen to it then.

[Marc Meakin]

Foley was mentioned in the above thread which got me thinking who in their right mind thinks when you bite into a magnum ice cream the noise you hear is real?

What noise? You get imaginary noises in your head when you have a Magnum?

I know you are being obtuse but I mean the noise from all the magnum adverts is not in anyway a reflexion of reality

[Marc Meakin]

I might listen to it then.

Oh the irony.
I have had an electric bike for 2 months now and today is the first day I forgot to wear my helmet
I was far less reckless and even avoided the downhill route on my journey.
I am a convert, having never worn one in 40 odd years of cycling mainly because I seldom went fast enough to need one but that has changed, plus I fell off my bike during covid and didn't go to hospital for fear of getting covid and it took 3 months to recover.
Cant be certain that the helmet would have saved any injuries however

[Fiona T]

I might listen to it then.

Oh the irony.
I have had an electric bike for 2 months now and today is the first day I forgot to wear my helmet
I was far less reckless and even avoided the downhill route on my journey.
I am a convert, having never worn one in 40 odd years of cycling mainly because I seldom went fast enough to need one but that has changed, plus I fell off my bike during covid and didn't go to hospital for fear of getting covid and it took 3 months to recover.
Cant be certain that the helmet would have saved any injuries however

So that's one of the points raised - if you wear a helmet you're more likely to indulge in risky behaviour.

The RoSPA 'falling down stairs' article is an interesting comparative - the stress is "how can we make stairs safer", not "how do we protect the stair user" - again one of the podcast guests is suggesting that focussing on putting helmets on heads is not solving the actual problems.

[Gavin Chipper]

So that's one of the points raised - if you wear a helmet you're more likely to indulge in risky behaviour.

This must be vary across individuals though. Plus it's not an inevitability and is something you can presumably train yourself out of. I think the blame is being put in the wrong place. With sensible behaviour, wearing a helmet must make cycling safer.

[Gavin Chipper]

Foley was mentioned in the above thread which got me thinking who in their right mind thinks when you bite into a magnum ice cream the noise you hear is real?

What noise? You get imaginary noises in your head when you have a Magnum?

I know you are being obtuse but I mean the noise from all the magnum adverts is not in anyway a reflexion of reality

I actually had no idea what you were talking about.

[Sam Cappleman-Lynes]

With sensible behaviour, wearing a helmet must make cycling safer.

I was intrigued by a recent study showing that motorists are more likely to see cyclists wearing safety equipment as "other", compared to those not wearing safety equipment.

[Gavin Chipper]

I might listen to it then.

Oh the irony.

What's the irony?

[Fiona T]

From a personal POV, I didn't used to wear a helmet. I started wearing one when we were training for our LeJog back in 2010, and one of the first helmeted rides I did, there was diesel on the road - my friend came off - I braked sharply to avoid hitting her and landed on my head. Helmet broke, I was slightly concussed, but definitely avoided at best a superficial head injury and at worst much more severe brain shake! I generally mostly wear one now, but am far from convinced that they are the answer to cycling safety. I think there is something in what Sam says- you see slim lycra-clad people on their racing bikes and you assume they're competent. You see a child, you give them a very wide birth. I think the less like a 'cyclist' you look, the better. I'm a fan of the Dutch model where people no more dress up to go out for a short trip on their bike, than you would put on special walking gear to stroll to Tesco.

The argument is about whether mandating the use of helmets saves lives. As the podcast points out, inactivity is more likely to kill you than landing on your head while riding a bike. So you're better to wear a helmet if you're riding your bike (or walking down the stairs), but if you're not going to ride your bike with one, then you're better to ride without one than not at all.

[Gavin Chipper]

There are an average of 109 cyclist deaths on the roads every year. Most of these involve collisions with other motor vehicles, for which a helmet provides limited protection.

There's little doubt that a cycle helmet decreases your chance of a head injury if your head hits the ground. If it's an area that interests you, listen to the podcast I linked - there's some good points made. TL;DR - wear a cycle helmet.

Just on this bit - hitting your head on a car while wearing a helmet on has surely got to be much better than without a helmet, just like hitting your head on the ground is better with a helmet.

Sure, if you have a head-on crash with a car while it's going 50mph and you're going 20mph in the opposite direction, it might not make much difference, but accidents don't generally happen like that. Almost all accidents have a period of "Shit I'm going to have an accident - let's try and get out of this somehow." and the ultimate hit with the car could be at any speed, from 0.1mph upwards. And a car is generally softer than the ground.

[Marc Meakin]

I might listen to it then.

Oh the irony.

What's the irony?

It sits on the irony boardy

[Marc Meakin]

Go back to my non ironic tale of leaving my bike helmet at home yesterday, I cycled much more conservatively for fear of falling off

I often think that modern cars are so safe you can drive like a maniac and still survive a high speed crash.

In essence people should just be careful

[Fiona T]

There are an average of 109 cyclist deaths on the roads every year. Most of these involve collisions with other motor vehicles, for which a helmet provides limited protection.

There's little doubt that a cycle helmet decreases your chance of a head injury if your head hits the ground. If it's an area that interests you, listen to the podcast I linked - there's some good points made. TL;DR - wear a cycle helmet.

Just on this bit - hitting your head on a car while wearing a helmet on has surely got to be much better than without a helmet, just like hitting your head on the ground is better with a helmet.

Sure, if you have a head-on crash with a car while it's going 50mph and you're going 20mph in the opposite direction, it might not make much difference, but accidents don't generally happen like that. Almost all accidents have a period of "Shit I'm going to have an accident - let's try and get out of this somehow." and the ultimate hit with the car could be at any speed, from 0.1mph upwards. And a car is generally softer than the ground.

Sure - if you hit your head while cycling (or doing anything else!) you're less likely to be seriously injured if you're wearing a helmet.

[Gavin Chipper]

Go back to my non ironic tale of leaving my bike helmet at home yesterday, I cycled much more conservatively for fear of falling off

I often think that modern cars are so safe you can drive like a maniac and still survive a high speed crash.

In essence people should just be careful

OK, I thought it might be a response to my comment you quoted.

[Ian Volante]

I've also seen various bits of research pointing out that drivers are more careful around cyclists without helmets on. As usual, it's a balance of risk. A helmet's almost always helpful if you crash, but as mentioned elsewhere, it may affect the risk level you put up with.

As for helmet promotion, as far as I'm aware, the more you try to push helmet-wearing, the fewer people actually cycle, so it's very much the sort of promotion that needs to be done passively.

[Marc Meakin]

I've also seen various bits of research pointing out that drivers are more careful around cyclists without helmets on. As usual, it's a balance of risk. A helmet's almost always helpful if you crash, but as mentioned elsewhere, it may affect the risk level you put up with.

As for helmet promotion, as far as I'm aware, the more you try to push helmet-wearing, the fewer people actually cycle, so it's very much the sort of promotion that needs to be done passively.

If the government licensed electric bikes making helmet wearing and insurance compulsory but with speed limiters increased to 30mph as a sweetener might be an incentive to go get e-cyclists wearing helmets.

[Elliott Mellor]

Why they don't use automatic hawkeye at Wimbledon when they clearly have the technology for it, and wrong calls are potentially influencing the outcomes of matches. It seems so daft when a ball is called out, and then commentary says "actually, hawkeye says that was in. He should have challenged that". They don't have a "challenge" system in football for if the ball has gone over the goal-line - as soon as they got the technology at a level where they could eliminate the human error, they implemented it. Wimbledon has had the technology for a good while, but still insists on using a system whereby players are expected to use a limited number of challenges to counter subjective calls.

[Marc Meakin]

Why they don't use automatic hawkeye at Wimbledon, when they clearly have the technology for it, and wrong calls are potentially influencing the outcomes of matches. It seems so daft when a ball is called out, and then commentary says "actually, hawkeye says that was in. He should have challenged that". They don't have a "challenge" system in football for if the ball has gone over the goal-line - as soon as they got the technology at a level where they could eliminate the human error, they implemented it. Wimbledon has had the technology for a good while, but still insists on using a system whereby players are expected to use a limited number of challenges to counter subjective calls.

Also Cricket could do something similar rather than have to refer to the TV umpire

[Martin Hurst]

A professional male tennis player hits 100 legal first serves to you, the receiver. How much money would you bet - double or nothing - (if at all) that you would be able to return just 1 out of the 100 serves back in play?

The Pro is tasked to try and make his serves unreturnable.

[Gavin Chipper]

If I understand the scenario right, the game ends as soon as you successfully return a serve. And unless you return the very first serve, you win nothing because all you're doing is cancelling the losses. So my answer would be nothing.

[Martin Hurst]

If I understand the scenario right, the game ends as soon as you successfully return a serve. And unless you return the very first serve, you win nothing because all you're doing is cancelling the losses. So my answer would be nothing.

No, apologies - you receive 100 serves - if you get any 1 of those 100 in you win, if you get 0 of those 100 in you lose. So basically 100 attempts to win, if you miss all 100 you lose.

[Gavin Chipper]

If I understand the scenario right, the game ends as soon as you successfully return a serve. And unless you return the very first serve, you win nothing because all you're doing is cancelling the losses. So my answer would be nothing.

No, apologies - you receive 100 serves - if you get any 1 of those 100 in you win, if you get 0 of those 100 in you lose. So basically 100 attempts to win, if you miss all 100 you lose.

But how does the double or nothing element work?

[Martin Hurst]

If I understand the scenario right, the game ends as soon as you successfully return a serve. And unless you return the very first serve, you win nothing because all you're doing is cancelling the losses. So my answer would be nothing.

No, apologies - you receive 100 serves - if you get any 1 of those 100 in you win, if you get 0 of those 100 in you lose. So basically 100 attempts to win, if you miss all 100 you lose.

But how does the double or nothing element work?

Just a normal mate's bet - if you whack on £100 you either win £100 or lose £100

[Gavin Chipper]

OK, thanks. I took double or nothing to mean double or quits where your debt doubles each time until you win, when it all cancele out.

[Gavin Chipper]

But anyway about £20. I think by chance most people would get at least one back. And £20 won't break the bank.

[Elliott Mellor]

But anyway about £20. I think by chance most people would get at least one back. And £20 won't break the bank.

I very strongly disagree that most people would, if you're including the large majority of the population who don't play tennis. You'd need a reasonable degree of experience to even have a chance of getting a racket on any of them, and then getting the ball in the general direction of the court is harder still. A professional serve is absolutely monstrous, and you've probably got about half a second to react - adjusting for the speed, swerve, and angle that has been applied. For most people, that's just not going to happen. I've been playing for 11 years and I'd probably fancy that I'd have an alright chance of getting one back, but that's only because I feel like I've got a good enough technique for it to be possible that I could get a racket to some of them (and hopefully route one back in to play).

[Gavin Chipper]

Forget most people. I think I would.

[Gavin Chipper]

It also depends how it's guaranteed that all 100 first serves will be in. There's various options.

1. He hits a load of serves how he wants but only the in serves count.

2. He hits 100 first serves as normal but they just happen to be in by coincidence.

3. You have to face an accurate recreation of the last 100 in first serves that he has hit in the professional game.

Etc.

[Martin Hurst]

It also depends how it's guaranteed that all 100 first serves will be in. There's various options.

1. He hits a load of serves how he wants but only the in serves count.

2. He hits 100 first serves as normal but they just happen to be in by coincidence.

3. You have to face an accurate recreation of the last 100 in first serves that he has hit in the professional game.

Etc.

Didn't think we were going to go into this much detail , but......

Number one, with no sort of gamesmanship.

He's getting paid handsomely to try and make you fail, so is trying his best.

[Gavin Chipper]

But anyway about £20. I think by chance most people would get at least one back. And £20 won't break the bank.

I very strongly disagree that most people would, if you're including the large majority of the population who don't play tennis. You'd need a reasonable degree of experience to even have a chance of getting a racket on any of them, and then getting the ball in the general direction of the court is harder still. A professional serve is absolutely monstrous, and you've probably got about half a second to react - adjusting for the speed, swerve, and angle that has been applied. For most people, that's just not going to happen. I've been playing for 11 years and I'd probably fancy that I'd have an alright chance of getting one back, but that's only because I feel like I've got a good enough technique for it to be possible that I could get a racket to some of them (and hopefully route one back in to play).

First serves can be quite inconsistent, and they often go out or hit the net requiring a second serve. And while it's specified that all these first serves will be in, there's a continuum of how good a serve can be. It's not simply a case of a brilliant serve or out. A lot of serves out of 100 will not be that brilliantly placed or will arrive quite a bit slower than the best ones.

[Marc Meakin]

Keep the net cord serves as its luck not intented.
However do away with the second serve completely and it would be a gamechanger

[Elliott Mellor]

But anyway about £20. I think by chance most people would get at least one back. And £20 won't break the bank.

I very strongly disagree that most people would, if you're including the large majority of the population who don't play tennis. You'd need a reasonable degree of experience to even have a chance of getting a racket on any of them, and then getting the ball in the general direction of the court is harder still. A professional serve is absolutely monstrous, and you've probably got about half a second to react - adjusting for the speed, swerve, and angle that has been applied. For most people, that's just not going to happen. I've been playing for 11 years and I'd probably fancy that I'd have an alright chance of getting one back, but that's only because I feel like I've got a good enough technique for it to be possible that I could get a racket to some of them (and hopefully route one back in to play).

First serves can be quite inconsistent, and they often go out or hit the net requiring a second serve. And while it's specified that all these first serves will be in, there's a continuum of how good a serve can be. It's not simply a case of a brilliant serve or out. A lot of serves out of 100 will not be that brilliantly placed or will arrive quite a bit slower than the best ones.

They're going to be hitting at 120mph+. Even just as a flat serve, without perfect placement, I'd like to see the average person get anywhere near it. Unless a person has some experience playing tennis, they aren't getting a single one back. I think people tend to watch tennis on tv and think "yeah I could definitely return a few of those", but if they actually had a go at it then they'd realise they really couldn't.

I reckon the fastest serves I've ever had a bash at returning are in the 100mph range, and they're tough even though I'm a fairly handy player. I'd be quite confident that a newbie wouldn't get 1/100 of those back, and a pro's serve is a good few levels above.

[Jon O'Neill]

But anyway about £20. I think by chance most people would get at least one back. And £20 won't break the bank.

I very strongly disagree that most people would, if you're including the large majority of the population who don't play tennis. You'd need a reasonable degree of experience to even have a chance of getting a racket on any of them, and then getting the ball in the general direction of the court is harder still. A professional serve is absolutely monstrous, and you've probably got about half a second to react - adjusting for the speed, swerve, and angle that has been applied. For most people, that's just not going to happen. I've been playing for 11 years and I'd probably fancy that I'd have an alright chance of getting one back, but that's only because I feel like I've got a good enough technique for it to be possible that I could get a racket to some of them (and hopefully route one back in to play).

I've played a bit of tennis for fun in my life. Not enough to know what facing a really good serve feels like. But I think that anyone vaguely sporty with a decent amount of hand eye co-ordination would be a big favourite in this bet. You get to learn on the job with pretty good feedback. I think if you can lay the racquet on 20 then you've got a pretty good chance of one landing in. Getting a racquet on one in five is not a given though.

This is something I'd love to partake in. I would back myself massively and make myself about a 90% favourite. For that type of advantage I guess I'd be willing to lay down a fairly significant chunk of money.

[Elliott Mellor]

But anyway about £20. I think by chance most people would get at least one back. And £20 won't break the bank.

I very strongly disagree that most people would, if you're including the large majority of the population who don't play tennis. You'd need a reasonable degree of experience to even have a chance of getting a racket on any of them, and then getting the ball in the general direction of the court is harder still. A professional serve is absolutely monstrous, and you've probably got about half a second to react - adjusting for the speed, swerve, and angle that has been applied. For most people, that's just not going to happen. I've been playing for 11 years and I'd probably fancy that I'd have an alright chance of getting one back, but that's only because I feel like I've got a good enough technique for it to be possible that I could get a racket to some of them (and hopefully route one back in to play).

I've played a bit of tennis for fun in my life. Not enough to know what facing a really good serve feels like. But I think that anyone vaguely sporty with a decent amount of hand eye co-ordination would be a big favourite in this bet. You get to learn on the job with pretty good feedback. I think if you can lay the racquet on 20 then you've got a pretty good chance of one landing in. Getting a racquet on one in five is not a given though.

This is something I'd love to partake in. I would back myself massively and make myself about a 90% favourite. For that type of advantage I guess I'd be willing to lay down a fairly significant chunk of money.

I really don't think the average person would get a racket on anywhere close to 20 of a pro's serves. Maybe three or four if they're extremely lucky, and the odds are that none of them would be close to going in.

I actually watched a video a while back where they challenged random people to return the serve of a pro in similar circumstances (it had to be a first serve, so if he faulted it didn't count) - he was ranked in the top 500 I think (not a recognisable name, but enough to probably be called professional), and out of probably 20 who were in the challenge, there was only one who even got a racket on the ball, and even then it was only a shave so nowhere near going in. I'll see if I can find the video, but it's highly unrealistic to assume that anyone who wasn't fairly adept at the sport would land a racket on 20+ of the serves.

[Jon O'Neill]

I didn't say anything about anyone could or would get a racquet on 20.

I've just seen a couple of videos like the one you're talking about. It's made me more confident.

Just thinking about how you'd practically do this as a challenge. I think you'd have to give the server an arbitrary number, say 200, goes to get first serves in.

[Jon O'Neill]

For the record, I wouldn't put any money on Gevin to win this bet.

[Gavin Chipper]

For the record, I wouldn't put any money on Gevin to win this bet.

But would you put money on me to lose?

[Jon O'Neill]

For the record, I wouldn't put any money on Gevin to win this bet.

But would you put money on me to lose?

Yes. Not as much as I'd put on myself to win though. Also even though Elliott is probably much better at tennis than me, I think I'd put more on myself than him. Is that wrong?

[Elliott Mellor]

For the record, I wouldn't put any money on Gevin to win this bet.

But would you put money on me to lose?

If you don't play tennis, I'd happily stake decent money on you not getting a single one back. I wouldn't even be confidently backing myself to get one (I'd feel I had enough of a chance that it might be worth £100, but I'd be betting that with the knowledge that there was a very real chance I'd lose).

[Paul Worsley]

He's getting paid handsomely to try and make you fail, so is trying his best.

Seeing as the pro is getting paid handsomely, can we go with the original idea of £100 bet, rather than the paltry £20?

[Adam Gillard]

I've played a bit of tennis for fun in my life. Not enough to know what facing a really good serve feels like. But I think that anyone vaguely sporty with a decent amount of hand eye co-ordination would be a big favourite in this bet. You get to learn on the job with pretty good feedback. I think if you can lay the racquet on 20 then you've got a pretty good chance of one landing in. Getting a racquet on one in five is not a given though.

This is something I'd love to partake in. I would back myself massively and make myself about a 90% favourite.

I agree with Jono here. I've emphasised his point about improving your chances as the 100 serves come in. I can imagine moving my starting position further behind the baseline to give me more time to track the fast serves or coerce the pro into more predictable slower / shorter serves that I could run forward to intercept. It would be difficult but I would back myself as a casual player to get a racket on around 3-5 of the first 30 serves and 15-25 of the last 70 serves. I reckon I would get about 3 back in play of the 100. If I were playing against a serving machine rather than a human then I would rate my chances higher as it wouldn't adapt to my adjustments to stand further back in the court.

See also BBC Sport's Smash Return flash game from the old days.

[Elliott Mellor]

I've played a bit of tennis for fun in my life. Not enough to know what facing a really good serve feels like. But I think that anyone vaguely sporty with a decent amount of hand eye co-ordination would be a big favourite in this bet. You get to learn on the job with pretty good feedback. I think if you can lay the racquet on 20 then you've got a pretty good chance of one landing in. Getting a racquet on one in five is not a given though.

This is something I'd love to partake in. I would back myself massively and make myself about a 90% favourite.

I agree with Jono here. I've emphasised his point about improving your chances as the 100 serves come in. I can imagine moving my starting position further behind the baseline to give me more time to track the fast serves or coerce the pro into more predictable slower / shorter serves that I could run forward to intercept. It would be difficult but I would back myself as a casual player to get a racket on around 3-5 of the first 30 serves and 15-25 of the last 70 serves. I reckon I would get about 3 back in play of the 100. If I were playing against a serving machine rather than a human then I would rate my chances higher as it wouldn't adapt to my adjustments to stand further back in the court.

See also BBC Sport's Smash Return flash game from the old days.

That's pretty much the worst approach here, because you're then giving them far more angles to utilise and you'd most definitely guarantee that you wouldn't have a chance. When the ball is coming at 120+mph, standing a metre further behind the baseline doesn't make all that much difference to how well you're able to react, and simply enables them to put the ball even further out of your reach. The optimal approach is to actually stand further in the court, and thereby close down the angles (meaning you might be able to get your racket on a few more, since they wouldn't have as much opportunity to beat you with ridiculous angles).

This is a professional, being paid to make your life as difficult as possible. They're going to be hitting quite a varied array of serves, so you wouldn't be able to just "adjust" when the next serve could be really far out wide, down the middle, heavy slice, kick etc.

Here are some stats from 2021 about the % of unreturned serves for the top players on tour:

https://www.atptour.com/en/news/medvede ... ember-2021

In other words, there are players on the tour who have an unreturned rate in excess of 40% on their first serves. And that's against people who have spent thousands of hours training, and are playing in top level events. Perhaps that might give people a bit more perspective here as to just how difficult the challenge is.

[Gavin Chipper]

For the record, I wouldn't put any money on Gevin to win this bet.

But would you put money on me to lose?

If you don't play tennis, I'd happily stake decent money on you not getting a single one back. I wouldn't even be confidently backing myself to get one (I'd feel I had enough of a chance that it might be worth £100, but I'd be betting that with the knowledge that there was a very real chance I'd lose).

I don't play tennis but I have played. Not at any high standard though.

[Gavin Chipper]

A big advantage of someone in this bet over a professional tennis player is that they only have to return one ball, so if I was playing this I'd commit early to a position of where the ball might go each time using some pseudo-random mechanism. It doesn't matter that lots of the balls would end up miles away from me. I should be in a reasonable position for a few dozen of them and then it's just a case of getting the ball back in just one of those cases. A professional would be trying to get each one so would have to wait longer.

[Elliott Mellor]

A big advantage of someone in this bet over a professional tennis player is that they only have to return one ball, so if I was playing this I'd commit early to a position of where the ball might go each time using some pseudo-random mechanism. It doesn't matter that lots of the balls would end up miles away from me. I should be in a reasonable position for a few dozen of them and then it's just a case of getting the ball back in just one of those cases. A professional would be trying to get each one so would have to wait longer.

You don't think that they'd just serve it well away from where you was? The professional is going to look at your starting position. You could of course randomly swap it at the last second, but you're still going to struggle enormously to route a ball of that speed back in to play. I think you're really overestimating your ability to make contact with a ball of such colossal speed - if you've not had any sort of exposure to really fast serves, and the spin and trajectory that they take, you're rarely even going to get the racket in the right place even if your position happens to be alright.

[Gavin Chipper]

A big advantage of someone in this bet over a professional tennis player is that they only have to return one ball, so if I was playing this I'd commit early to a position of where the ball might go each time using some pseudo-random mechanism. It doesn't matter that lots of the balls would end up miles away from me. I should be in a reasonable position for a few dozen of them and then it's just a case of getting the ball back in just one of those cases. A professional would be trying to get each one so would have to wait longer.

You don't think that they'd just serve it well away from where you was? The professional is going to look at your starting position.

Obviously you start in the same place for each one. Well you might modify it as you learn but the bit about going left or right is something you've predecided but you don't give it away in advance. It saves on reaction time.

[Elliott Mellor]

A big advantage of someone in this bet over a professional tennis player is that they only have to return one ball, so if I was playing this I'd commit early to a position of where the ball might go each time using some pseudo-random mechanism. It doesn't matter that lots of the balls would end up miles away from me. I should be in a reasonable position for a few dozen of them and then it's just a case of getting the ball back in just one of those cases. A professional would be trying to get each one so would have to wait longer.

You don't think that they'd just serve it well away from where you was? The professional is going to look at your starting position.

Obviously you start in the same place for each one. Well you might modify it as you learn but the bit about going left or right is something you've predecided but you don't give it away in advance. It saves on reaction time.

I really don't think it's quite as simple as "guessing left or right".

Hubert Hurkacz currently has an unreturned first serve rate of around 60% in his match against Novak Djokovic. Djokovic is quite possibly the best returner in the entire history of the sport. Within that 40%, there were several that were in excess of 130mph, even approaching 140mph, that were only returned because Djokovic is Djokovic - I sure wouldn't be landing a racket on them myself. Against many other professionals, you'd potentially be looking at 80% unreturned. Are you still confident that you'd have a good chance of getting some back?

I will say, it does make a bit of a difference what professional is serving against you - some have weaker serves and they could potentially be exploited, but there are a lot of professionals out there who could fire 100 unreturned serves in this scenario.

[Gavin Chipper]

This is a separate point though. I'm just saying that the person in this bet has this advantage of a quicker "reaction" time. This is surely objectively the case.

[Elliott Mellor]

This is a separate point though. I'm just saying that the person in this bet has this advantage of a quicker "reaction" time. This is surely objectively the case.

I don't agree that the average person could react quickly enough, and coordinate making contact on the ball, on a serve of this magnitude. Odds are, even if by dumb luck you did get a racket on a few, you'd have absolutely no capability of controlling it. You have to have feel of the game to have that instinct, and 100 serves (most of which you won't even get close to touching) isn't enough to really learn that. It's not just about how close you are to the ball - it's about the kick, the slice, the angle - even if it was within arm's reach, you probably wouldn't even hold the racket in the right place to make contact because you've got to have incredible coordination to time the swing accurately. You've got probably half a second to recognise all of these factors (which will change, because they'll be hitting different types of serve), and swing at the ball. I'm not saying that there's no chance at all that you could make one by sheer fluke, but I don't think the chance is nearly as high as you seem to suppose.

I'd be interested if we could actually organise this challenge in order to prove one of us right, but I'm not sure anyone here really has the connections to do that.

[Gavin Chipper]

Another point is that a lot of the "best" returns of serve are essentially flukes. A hard first serve that could have won the point; the receiver just gets their racket to it but where it ends up is essentially random, and the court is big enough for it to be a reasonably likely landing point.

As long as you're capable of holding the racket firmly enough to actually return a ball (and you can use two hands if you want), I'd say you've got a good chance of fluking some of them in. You don't need to be that great at controlling it.

By the way, I don't think anyone's mentioned this but this does also depend on the playing surface. I don't think you get as many aces on clay as you do on grass, for example. Plus I think they used to be more common in the Sampras days before they made a few changes (to the balls/surfaces/whatever) to slow things down.

[Elliott Mellor]

Another point is that a lot of the "best" returns of serve are essentially flukes. A hard first serve that could have won the point; the receiver just gets their racket to it but where it ends up is essentially random, and the court is big enough for it to be a reasonably likely landing point.

As long as you're capable of holding the racket firmly enough to actually return a ball (and you can use two hands if you want), I'd say you've got a good chance of fluking some of them in. You don't need to be that great at controlling it.

By the way, I don't think anyone's mentioned this but this does also depend on the playing surface. I don't think you get as many aces on clay as you do on grass, for example. Plus I think they used to be more common in the Sampras days before they made a few changes (to the balls/surfaces/whatever) to slow things down.

It's technique as well that gets those returns in, not just "holding the racket firmly and hoping for the best". That you think a professional getting their racket on a ball and getting it in is good grounds for assuming someone totally inexperienced could is a little bit absurd.

Find someone who plays tennis to a reasonably high level, and replicate this challenge with them. You'll soon discover it's a bit more than just "holding the racket and hoping for the best". Obviously it's likely you might actually get some of those, but it should give you a fair enough perspective.

[Gavin Chipper]

I am only after a 1 in 100 fluke though.

[Elliott Mellor]

I still think it's a stretch for anyone who doesn't play tennis fairly competently, but I admire your optimism.

[Marc Meakin]

I still think it's a stretch for anyone who doesn't play tennis fairly competently, but I admire your optimism.

If a non player was taken off the street and went on a grass court and was offered the wager then I would say said person is most likely to lose but if Jono or Gevin was asked and they could choose a clay court and could spend a few days practising with a machine beforehand then my money is on either of them