Men, can you land a plane or score against Serena Williams?

I can't do either of those things, but I can spell nonbinary...

I guess any pro tennis player could hit a double fault, against any opponent.

nonbinery, is that like somebobody who doesn't use garbage cans

Gah apologies for bad spelling

I'd like to think that I could land a plane against Serena Williams

On what surface?

Put me and Sully on the court and it's game, set, match.

On what surface?

Tarmac.

Serena in her prime, or Serena right now? Probably wouldn't make a difference for me, but at a certain level of ability, it definitely would.

I probably could land a plane if I had received extensive training beforehand, but that's not the scenario in the article. Insane premise anyway, surely if no qualified pilots are onboard you might as well have a flight attendant give it a go, at least they'd be more familiar with the surroundings.

Don't think there's any level of training where I could beat Serena, or even, like, anyone several levels below her in talent. Too dyspraxic for that shit.

dogg, i can't tie a tie without consulting YouTube

I guess any pro tennis player could hit a double fault, against any opponent.

― LocalGarda, Monday, December 1, 2025 4:41 PM (forty-eight minutes ago)

I probably could land a plane if I had received extensive training beforehand, but that's not the scenario in the article. Insane premise anyway, surely if no qualified pilots are onboard you might as well have a flight attendant give it a go, at least they'd be more familiar with the surroundings.

Don't think there's any level of training where I could beat Serena, or even, like, anyone several levels below her in talent. Too dyspraxic for that shit.

― a ZX spectrum is haunting Europe (Daniel_Rf)

Ha, this was exactly my thinking, too. I'd like to imagine I could learn to land a plane given enough time and instruction, but I don't think there's any circumstance where I could score a point against Serena Williams. Unless her arms and legs were tied together. And even then I'd still probably need multiple tries.

1. fuck no
2. fuck no

pre clemenza's point, I could probably defeat a toddler Serena Williams at tennis, but I would give it even odds

dogg, i can't tie a tie without consulting YouTube

Back in high school I had to wear a tie every day for two years. I got to the point where I could tie it without looking while walking down a crowded hallway. 30+ years later I have zero confidence I could even get it around my neck on the first try.

the question does not specifically say you have to score a point against her _in tennis_, only that she is a tennis player

I could simply say "are you still married to that reddit founder dweeb?" and my insult would be worth at least one point

This podcast does a good job off addressing the plane question (ignore the url, it’s in a two-part episode): https://www.nosuchthing.show/p/do-audiobooks-count-as-reading.

Also the chapter on Serena Williams in Citizen by Claudia Rankine is a good account of the history of people thinking they’re above an objectively exceptional tennis player. I would definitely regard anyone that’s not an actually pro with serious suspicion if they said they could win a point.

I imagine many would picture landing a plane with the tower talking you through the controls?* This happens in films but I imagine I would screw it up - I can’t really tell left from right particularly when I’m in a flap and might even accidentally turn the radio off. There are a lot of buttons.

Serena lol no way. She’s not double faulting. She looks at me and knows she just has to give it a gentle tap half a yard from any of the lines and I won’t make it.

*Airplane! They’re picturing Airplane!

Again, if it's hit a shot that wins a point, no. If it's maybe they hit the net once or double fault then unlikely but could happen. Given the extremely hypothetical situation removes any ability to know how seriously anyone is taking the game it seems not really worth discussion. Is there a crowd there? Has the pro player been told the challenge is to deny the opponent a point? Also does this happen before I kill a plane full of people?

xpost

crashing the plane into the tennis court

Just to clarify: I'm convinced that Adam, the best player in my club, could win a point against 44-year-old Serena. I can win the occasional point against Adam--he'll make unforced errors now and again. But I don't think Adam could have won a point against Serena in her prime. It's a continuum.

Feel like landing the plane (and I also assume it's being coached by radio or whatever) would involve some skills whereas winning the point could only be an accident. But if everyone on this thread played the tennis match there'd prob be a double fault or a shot against the net eventually.

Yeah but why would they go for an ace at all in those circumstances, knowing that I'm cooked even if I manage to return the serve

hubris

also if you won one point there's a chance they could collapse mentally

could I score a goal if I were first choice striker for a top Premier League team for an entire season

no, is the answer. But i'd like to see the highlights

If it was in an amazing team you'd prob get one now and again, like if someone sets up a tap in.

I could score a point on Serena easily.

If i was serving
If she played with her other hand
If her right leg was taped to the court
If she took a muscle relaxer an hour before
If there were gators to her left amd right

Also of course i can land a plane. Ever heard of a crash landing?

can't score a tap-in when you're being resusicated on the half-way line

Rando guys thinking they could win a point off Serena are getting high off their own supply and that supply is misogyny.

So are rando surveys choosing Serena for this rando question

I could totally land Serena Williams.

you could probably land a plane if it has autopilot engaged + someone on the other end talks you through it. I’ve seen it done (on youtube) in simulators

no autopilot activated? very slim (to nil) chance imo - even with someone talking you through it

Can't land a plane with charm, but giving Serena Williams a big goofy smile as she sets up to serve...

I’ll clarify that it it were like in Thai zoos where they drug up tigers with tranquilizers so tourists can take photos with them, I could probably score a point on a heavily sedated Serena Williams

Rando guys thinking they could win a point off Serena are getting high off their own supply and that supply is misogyny.

― il lavoro mi rovina la giornata (PBKR)

I would say that treating "Serena" as an abstraction--that there's no difference between the 22-year-old force of nature and the 44-year-old mom--severly shortchanges the 22-year-old. I couldn't see, much less hit, a Sandy Koufax fastball in 1965; I might have been able to in 1995; I'm pretty sure I could today. So if all those guys who said 'yes' were thinking of the 22-year-old, yes, they're sadly deluded. If they're good club players, and they're thinking about today, I don't see any misogyny there. (Also matters: are you talking about a set or a match? A set would be 24 straight points; a match, either 48 or 72--much better chance of fluking into a point.)

Why are men trying to land a plane on Serena Williams to score points?

I feel theres some misogyny there because this sort of discussion seems to come up when bros are talking about womens sports

that said I still think there's an interesting discussion there, I love talking about how randos would fare against professional athletes, I love how sometimes these superhuman freaks can struggle to do routine things, idk I think its a fun thought experiment at least

(for me the answer is - I couldn't score a point in a match, but given 1000 tries? probably one. sometimes tennis balls can have freaky spin to them)

I don’t think it’s even a maybe, of course it is misogynistic.

I have just seen these two stats in the past two days and now want to know what other dumb stuff men have been asked.

I think part of what fueled the poker boom is the idea that you really could win a hand against Annie Duke or Phil Hellmuth or whoever, even if winning a whole tournament against them would be unlikely. I always compare that to playing one-on-one basketball against an NBA or WNBA pro, or playing chess against a pro, where the odds of winning anything would be ultra-slim..

Given the extremely hypothetical situation removes any ability to know how seriously anyone is taking the game it seems not really worth discussion. Is there a crowd there? Has the pro player been told the challenge is to deny the opponent a point? Also does this happen before I kill a plane full of people?

1) Yes, it's your respective families plus Noel Edmonds
2) No, they have only been given your first name and a photo of your childhood home
3) N/A, because you land the plane easy peasy

lemon squeezy

If you recast this in golf terms--could you win a hole against Tiger Woods?--I can see the exact same questions coming up. Do you mean Tiger in 1995, or Tiger today? In '95, beating him for even one hole (playing your local course that you're familar with, which would be significantly easier than the courses he played; he'd be chipping into every par 4) would be tough. It'd be tough today, too, but if you're a guy who shoots in the high 70s or low 80s, winning one out of 18 holes does not seem farfetched--you make a lot of pars, he's going to mis-hit a shot now and again.

xxxp you could definitely win a heads up match against those people, in fact I'd wager a decent amateur could beat the best poker players in a standard heads up tourney at least 40% of the time. and yeah that's absolutely the appeal. the whole poker boom started because of Chris Moneymaker winning the 2003 WSOP despite being a thoroughly mediocre player...all he had was a willingness to gamble. if Sam Farha had won it I don't think it would've happened to nearly the same extent.

maybe if he's wearing full marine uniform

xpost

yeah, golf is a good example of where a lot of players could prob take a hole or two off a pro? like especially if you're the local player and you know the course. albeit my dad tells a story of getting to play a round with bernhard langer before, years ago, and he said that they had a chat or a drink after and he realised that after one round langer seemed to know the course as well as my dad did having played it for 20 years.

By the way, recommend this to anyone interested in a closer look at Serena's struggles (both physical and mental) to win her 24th major--covers five or six years, just before and after the birth of her child. That may or may not be germane to this question; again, if you're talking Serena today, I think it matters the quality of the guy she'd be playing. (Who was surveyed? If it's a bunch of Joe Yahoos who've played tennis a few times in their lives, then of course the question is absurd--landing the airplane would be easier.)

https://i.postimg.cc/JzRh9yx5/serena.jpg

Garu G had a hell of a serve iirc

If he was serving against his gran

*Sigh*

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/articles/cvgdn9ewg97o

oh nice it's in dubai

It's just really interesting to me as someone who, late in life, has suddenly started playing a lot of tennis (and who just finished a book on Serena Williams).

― clemenza, Tuesday, 2 December 2025 bookmarkflaglink

As someone who has watched a lot of slam tennis for 25+ years what's behind it is the notion that women should not be earning the money men do because they don't strike the ball as hard or whatever. I wouldn't entertain it as any kind of thought experiment.

what's behind it is yougov

(xpost) What's behind "it" may not line up with whatever interest the question has for me.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/dec/27/new-battle-of-the-sexes-is-cynical-bid-for-attention-and-own-goal-for-sabalenka

I almost went with “lol wtf” but voted “i am a nonbinary man who sure as hell couldn’t do either thing”

i can totally land a plane

it’s easy you just hit the auto-land button

for real though, i do think i could hit the runway but wouldn’t know how to stop

Big Air is always promoting the conspiracy theory that planes are hard to land because they don’t want the passengers clogging up the cockpit offering to do it

Having to land a plane with Serena Williams (as co-pilot, figuring out the controls together) would be a good dream.

then, while she’s landing the plane, you can ask her to lose a point, just a single point please, sometime during tomorrow’s friendly match over at the park

My hunch is that even if the match against Serena Williams was extended indefinitely I would fail to score a point, because I'd get exhausted long before she does. Eventually I'd end up as an exhausted wreck being pelted with tennis balls by Serena Williams, which wouldn't even be sexy because she's married to the co-founder of Reddit. I would be unable to enjoy the experience without thinking about the co-founder of Reddit. My entire sexual life has been ruined by the co-founder of Reddit. Curse you, the co-founder of Reddit.

As for landing a plane, I have Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, and I was once order #00 consecutively in two different McDonald's restaurants eighty miles apart. Breakfast and lunch. So my question would be "which plane" and "how safely". If it was an airliner I'd need the tower to brief me on flap settings, stall speeds, and whether it would be quicker and safer to program the autopilot to auto-land, or whether I should select direct law and manually land the plane.

For a light aircraft I would need to know about flap settings and stall speeds. Bear in mind that for some light aircraft, such as a Piper Cub, the landing speed is only around 40mph, so the experience would be a bit like trying to stop a car going at 40mph without brakes by e.g. scraping it along the side of an embankment. But sideways.

On the other hand I've never sat in the cockpit of of an aeroplane, in flight or otherwise. When I play Flight Simulator 2020 I'm sat in a comfortable chair, wearing normal people clothes, looking at a screen. I'm not blinded by sunlight or thrown off by turbulence or hypoxic from lack of oxygen. But I'm reasonably confident that I could get the aeroplane down onto the runway without dying. Depending on events I might even attempt to taxi to the gate. I would need to be shown how to shut the engines down otherwise things could get messy when I try to leave the plane.

At night? There's something philosophical about dying in a plane crash at night. One moment you're in a metal box, surrounded by darkness. Then there is only darkness.

Did we ever get this sorted?

i feel pretty certain that anyone half able to hold a racquet and get in any way about a court has a chance of getting a *point* across (presumably) a three set match against anyone else

if the question was a *game* then the answer would be a strong nope

im not sure why all the answers given on ilx are so much the other way but

we can't give the devil a foothold lest he gain a stronghold

sorry i don't know a lot of tennis lingo if that is tactical observation it's lost on me

I think you are underestimating. the power of the professional game, darraghmac. I think think only way someone only able to half hold a racquet and get about a court is winning a point against even Serena today is if she doesn't know you are hopeless on the first point and accidentally double faults. After that she's playing it safe (assuming her son is to win every point).

Son = aim

it may well be so tbf

id still absolutely take it over the plane landing

if nothing else the stakes seem a little lower

if nothing else the stakes seem a little lower

This is an excellent point. I imagine the other people on the plane (if given a voice in the decision) would very much prefer that I go lose at tennis.

i’d rather die peacefully in my sleep and not screaming like the passengers on my plane

I am so fucking slow that all Serena would have to do is smash the ball on the opposite quadrant and my knees would buckle

I find bad news goes down easier with humor.

For example:

"Alright passengers, we are currently descending to -100 feet"

"anyone with an eu passport can exit the plane before landing"

I imagine it would take Serena a turn or two to figure out a serve that any of us couldn't return. And from there the question isn't whether we would score a point but whether we would return a serve for the rest of the game.

Could you land a plane while engaged in a dogfight with Serena Williams?

I imagine it would take Serena a turn or two to figure out a serve that any of us couldn't return

Some of us couldn't return a serve against a dyspraxic 8 year old, I'll have you know.

[Montage of Serena whapping ball after ball past helped ILXors]

(helpless? Don’t remember what it autocorrected there.)

I'm fairly certain Serena could land a plane better than I could

of course men can score against serena williams, that's why trans women aren't allowed to play tennis, because our chromosomes or whatever give us an unfair biological advantage

in all seriousness, i should in passing note that billie jean king, after beating bobby riggs, did go on to support renee richards in the '70s. billie jean king is awesome.

i'm not sure if i could score against billie jean king today. for that matter, i'm don't think i could score _with_ billie jean king today.

i feel pretty certain that anyone half able to hold a racquet and get in any way about a court has a chance of getting a *point* across (presumably) a three set match against anyone else
― Wichita Referee's Assistant (darraghmac), samedi 27 décembre 2025 22:11 (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

If we re-interpret the question as 'would Serena avoid making a single mistake during a 3-set match against average Joe', I agree with you the answer could be yes simply because professionals make unforced errors, and it's not unrealistic to imagine she'd commit one even in a zero pressure game. Under that reinterpretation, it really becomes Serena's challenge to win every point, i.e 72 consecutive winners for a 3-set, 48 for a 2-set. If Joe has played some tennis and knows how to run, hit the ball, and can serve, it's probably already enough resistance to make it a challenge for Serena - albeit an extremely silly one where Joe does not really feature. For me the spirit of the question was not "can you manage to get triple bagled and Serena accidentally hits the net / wide once", but rather can you actually win a point and are you ready to bet on that?

Same for the plane. If tower control lands it for you and you haven't pressed a button, you haven't "landed" the plane in any sense.

When I was a kid, I remember hearing the official Swiss goalkeeper had showed up at the kid's yearly tournament, and they had set up a challenge where anyone who'd score a penalty against him would get a small price. Nobody did - adults included. But it's just a question of how many times you try right? There's nothing fundamentally impossible about it and no loss of dignity for the professional athlete if an amateur eventually scores a goal. Professionals are high performers, not machines.

Thought of this thread when playing in a casual (but league-official) pinball tournament tonight, and one guy (named Angry Mike) pointed to a hotshot and said "That guy's ranked number 10 in the state of Oregon." And sure enough, he won the tourney and did quite better than the rest of us. And I thought how, yes, it would be possible to win some rounds against him (and I did win one), but also was aware of how much more practiced he was, how much more effort he had put into it, and simply enough how many more techniques he had for keeping the ball in play and maximizing points. All of which is to say: it's hard to beat someone who is both obsessed with what they do and practice every day at it.

Each year (well, maybe it only started last year), the Australian Open runs an event called the One Point Slam, in the weekend before the actual tournament. You get the idea. Amateurs and pros, up against each other. Coin toss for serve. I think the pros only get one. The amateurs qualify from feeder events across Aussie tennis clubs (so they can all play a bit). There was a 56yo guy last year who took out three pros, two service winners and an ace down the middle - finally beaten by Priscilla Hon (top 200) in the semi. Funny to watch the pros get a little nervy (Rublev faulted his way out the qf).

This year it's under the lights, 15x the prize money and they've got bigger names interested (and "celebs"). Rock-paper-scissors for serve. So, if it's truly one point tennis you're after...

Could he fly a plane tho?

could you score a point against Jannik Sinner: https://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/articles/ckgyl1ndw57o

He doesn't read this board I assume.

Kind of weird they have this jolly, good vibes handout for people who like tennis but don't play for a living when I'm fairly sure the touring players ranked 200 or whatever would cut off a finger for the chance to win 1m by winning a point, a sum which would sustain them for a long time.

Sort of staged altruism.

So, Sinner served into the net when he knew he had only one serve? Was that pre-arranged with the sponsor? And people clap? A New South Wales champion deserved at least a half-played rally. I call BS.

Aussie and US slams have really gotten into gimmicks the week before for 'engagement' hence the slop we are being er, served.

Wimbledon and French seem far more reticent, probably bcz much more conservative.

promising video titles that turn out to not be from Christianity Today

Amateur Beats Sinner

UK grime debut single from Sinner

There's a tiktok video from idk maybe a year ago? that hit my fyp again lately, of a woman who runs track, specifically the 400m and 800m, competitively, whose friend's boyfriend thought he could hang or even beat her at her own distance. I think she says he just couldn't imagine being unable to beat any woman at running. She smokes him obv.

I think people have no actual concept of how good people are at these sports

and how insignificant any 'innate' difference between large groups of men and large groups of women in athletic ability is when you're stacking a random dude against an elite player. it might as well not exist at all.

like, just what happens to the human body - any human body - after years of dedicated training is so dramatic as to render that difference completely irrelevant. and that's not considering genetics. it's sort of a classic example of the axiom that even though overall women may be different than men in some ways - when distilling averages among large groups of people - the variability in each of those groups is so galaxy-sized that you can't apply those averages in any meaningful way when you're comparing individuals.

IMO it’s pretty absurd for anyone to think they are better than Serena Williams even for a single second. She is better at playing tennis than you will ever be. The end.

kind of a nonsensical way to look at this question

I do wonder if you can give varying amounts of psychedelic drugs, drink, etc... to an expert and a novice that would even them out in a contest, or if they will always give the expert superpowers like Dock Ellis.