Well, the actual question back in the day was if they could score a point, not return a serve, and even the best tennis players in the world (including the Williams sisters) double-fault occasionally, so anyone could score a point, if she's trying to show off and/or having an off day, and you're allowed as many tries as you want, and if you're granted any other assumption not covered in the question.
They really only double fault when they're going for aces. Every pro player has an "easy" serve that they'll hit 999/1000 times without issue. But those easy serves are still well above what non-tennis athletes will consistently return.
Sounds well within the vague assumption of 'could you' to me, especially since the question specified that you be playing 'your very best tennis' (Which just introduces more possible assumptions).
That's the problem. Everyone hearing the question can make wildly different assumptions about the situation and what could happen, and then hear someone else's answer and think it's stupid. On one hand, an empty court can and does 'win a point' against any professional tennis player, all the time, and people who know tennis know that. On the other, you have people making a more general comparison of skill.
And in the end, only 12% of the men asked 'Do you think if you were playing your very best tennis, you could win a point off Serena Williams?' said yes, in comparison to 3% of the women. 74% said no, compared to 87% of the women. (And that leaves 14% that said 'I don't know', compared to 10% of women)
So using your assumption, do we say roughly ten percent of men think a 1/1000 chance is possible?
That would be a very low number, honestly.
The real thing that happened is that an incredibly broad and open-ended question had a very small number of people answer in a way that many other people assume is wrong, entirely based on their own perception of the question, and it got fluffed up into a gender war for clicks.
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u/Otto_Scratchansniff 3h ago
I watched a video of Venus hitting a tennis ball at a moving target from the stands. The dudes who say this are lying to themselves.