Pro tennis players play up to 100 three hour matches a year. Yet pro runners struggle to race >10 times a year

Tennis pays more. He found tournaments worth his time and risk of injury.

Tennis is less dependent on physical athletic talent. Being only 90-95% “healthy” does not affect a tennis player's overall performance as much as a track athlete. (and a world class athlete is not 100% for 97 matches - they may not say it but they are hurting)

Have you watched tennis? The best players are tremendous athletes.

It's an interesting question. A big part of the answer is that the two sports are structured very differently. A tennis player plays multiple matches in a tournament because there are so many qualifying rounds. Getting to the finals in a field of 60 plus means playing about six matches. At championship meets sprinters will have maybe two heats and a final if they get to the final. You'd have a hard time finding 100 races for sprinters to run in the course of a year. But if your point is that playing several dozen three to five hour tennis matches in a year is a lot tougher than running a couple dozen 100s or 200s I think it's a hard point to dispute.

Yes, all the time. I even play tennis.

I don't see where you think I said tennis players aren't athletes. I even refer to Feder being a world class athlete.

“Tennis is less dependent on physical athletic talent”.

That conflicts with my belief that they are tremendous athletes.

I think runners should race more!

A big difference though is heads up competition (1 vs 1) or 2 vs 2. You are only playing one person or one side vs the other. If both athletes are not 100% peaked, it will still be a quality entertaining product. Kind of like the NBA or NHL regular season vs post season intensity.

I remember watching the NHL playoff as a kid thinking “these guys would be dead if they played like this for months on end”

Track, road racing, xc, it is one vs 15-20 or more! If you aren’t fully ready you will be exposed badly.

Also the drop in drop out only race when you are ready nature of track leads to fear or being exposed.

In cycling everyone races the same circuit, at the end of a grand tour they are all dead, so it is still a competitive race.

I remember an advertisement in a running magazine years ago. It was an NBA basketball player and the caption said, "I run a 10K 82 times per year." I can't remember if it was for running shoes or even who the player was.

Pro runners would have no trouble running 100 3-hour races a year if they could take standing rest 200 times in each race.

Then, you also have guys like Wesley Kiptoo who run a fall marathon and don't bat an eye at running World Cross in a year where it didn't seem like US guys could care any less about competing.

I get so tired of hearing "Oh, they did WCs in AUGUST and aren't going to be ready for a race in *checks calendar* JANUARY

Our sport is actually difficult/competitive... 40 year olds don't dominate it.

Also, half of those matches are against competition that isn't among the top 30 in the world. Can you imagine if top runners ran most of their races against guys who couldn't qualify for USA outdoor championships?

Tennis players also exert themselves less. Their heart rates max out in the 160s during competition, below the typical heart rate during a tempo run. Plenty of us have more than 100 days of more intense workouts than that.

I would say it is indeed less dependent on physical athleticism, a better term for which is fitness, because skill is the most important element if you were forced to pick one between skill and fitness. There are many people who would have sufficient fitness but not the skill level as elite tennis players. (If you really push it anally though, it might be a blurry line of a distinction between skill and fitness.)

But as we understand those two terms in their simple everyday meaning, in running, there is no skill, only fitness.

LOL. I can't think of a sport that is MORE dependent on physical athletic talent. It's all speed, agility, endurance, hand eye, strength. If you tried to invent a sport that is the most dependent on athletic ability this is what you would come up with. These matches are 2-5 hours long of using the whole body, stop and go, running, hitting.... Im always shocked pro level layers are not always hurt. So much harder on the lower body than running. Probably says something for the more repetitive nature of running. But then again tennis players get hurt too.

Tennis players having less physical athletic talent than a runner is the worst take ever.

Three hours, with sitting down and getting a drink between sets.

This is like European footballers. Talking about American foobtall is for weenies because they wear equipment.

Then why don't we see any of those European footballers coming over and dominating?

Why don't any tennis players come to a 10k and run sub 6's?

That's just HR. Tennis is 5000x more intense on your overall body than running in a straight line.

You're just completely wrong. You must be terrible at running to not understand that it's probably the most physically taxing activity you can do (if you're doing a max effort).

a great pro tennis player wins 55% of his or her points. i played some tournament tennis without any coaching ever and took some points off varsity HS players.

as a soccer player, i had to pick and choose my opportunities to sprint upfield, save my energy, make sure i was back guarding my man when i was supposed to.

First of all, at the professional level, tennis is very lopsided. The very top-ranked players can demolish their first-, second-, even third-round opponents, with very little effort. The effort-inducing matches would only be the last couple in a tournament.

Second of all, at the professional level, serving wins tons of free points. Most serves are not able to be returned (Aces are only some of unreturned serves). That means most of the match is spent with one player hitting a serve (less effort than it takes to pitch a baseball, probably) and the other watching it go by or lunging unsuccessfully at it.