If the best athletes played tennis in America...

T

tennisoh

Semi-Pro
Do you think Roddick and Blake would be our standouts right now? I think with all the sports kids today can play, the best athletes don't play tennis 9 times out of 10. Why you ask?

Mainly, it is a hard and expensive sport to pick up. You have to be good early to get sponsors so you don't pay thousands of dollars to go all over the world. In basketball, baseball and football you don't have pick your sport right away. Many top football players play basketball or baseball and the other way around all through high school.

Also, it has gotten to the point where in order to be great you have to basically leave your high school to either home school or go to an Academy. Most Americans don't want to do that. In the major team sports, you can play against crummy high school competition and still get drafted high.

Anyway, while I am not taking anything away from tennis players, I think they are not seeing the best athletes play their sport.

I'll give you some names of pro athletes that might have been great at tennis if they would have gone that way.

Jose Reyes-ss for the Mets
Steve Nash-g for the Suna
numerous NFL players, as well as other NBA and MLB players
not to mention hockey and soccer players as well
 
I disagree completely. I mean I know usa is a great country and so on and you have like a ton of athletes and everything, but people simple engage into sports they like and not into the ones they dislike. If you like tennis you will play it.

On a more serious note - you have to start at 4 - 8 years old, then if you show any potential serious training starts at 12 - 14 years old. Thats way before in tennis than other sports so I feel people engaged in tennis are decided on that much before than in basketball, example Tim Duncan, who seriously started playing late and yet was MVP and what not.

At the end, Roddick, not being considered athlete by you, is actually serving 255kph serves, BY FAR fastest in the forld and is pretty quick and in all fairness great player, the flaw with him is mental purely.
 
I never said Roddick wasn't an athlete. However, I am sure there are plenty of professional athletes who could have developed a serve as fast or faster if they had the resources and dedication early on instead of going with the more mainstream sports.
 
^^^ I dont think 255 is easilly toped. You need a hell of a serve and you see that ARod is not that big guy. Its a techniclly and phisiclly demanding sport but as every other, in its unique way. Maybe MVP steve nash would not be near the top 50 in tennis, who knows.
 
nash and reyes are bad examples, but overall i agree. nash couldn't make it in soccer, his feet are too slow (as they would be in tennis), his hands are unmatched though and he could possibly be a santoro-esque tennis player with a bit more power (top dubs player?). baseball is such an uncompetitive and unathletic GAME that i'm insulted to hear it mentioned. basketball players (explosive nba shooting guards) are probably the best suited athletes for tennis. tennis is much more work, though, and much less pay. year round schedule, more physical aspects (explosiveness, endurance and skill as opposed to 1 or 2 of the 3), no coaching, more individual pressure.....
 
Hooooon said:
baseball is such an uncompetitive and unathletic GAME that i'm insulted to hear it mentioned.
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You're committing a fallacy here. Just because the game of baseball doesn't necessarily require the same quantity of athletic skill as tennis, top-to-bottom, does not mean the caliber of athletes participating is inferior. It takes only a look at the scouting numbers of some of your more athletic baseball players to know the most athletic among them are clearly superior in the base athletic skills to even the upper echelon of tennis players. Nobody in pro tennis history can hold an athletic candle to a Bo Jackson, or a Kenny Lofton. Put a racquet in Randy Johnson's hand from the time he's 12, and he'd make Karlovic look like a dinker.

Golf is far less a sport than even baseball, but Tiger Woods would be the most gifted athlete who ever stepped on a court if he became a pro tennis player tomorrow.

The best athletes are drawn to the best marketing opportunities, the biggest salaries, and the sports that culture forces upon them. Tennis loses on all fronts in the USA. 100% of the best athletes choose other sports, and tennis gets only the athletic dregs. In a sport where being arguably the greatest of all time gets you yearly earnings a bench-sitting scrub from a prominent sport would scoff at, you can't expect to do any better.

If all of America's best athletes, and the best athletes from around the world who play in American sports leagues, had trained in tennis from the time they were children, Federer wouldn't even cut it as a journeyman.
 
Grimjack said:
You're committing a fallacy here. Just because the game of baseball doesn't necessarily require the same quantity of athletic skill as tennis, top-to-bottom, does not mean the caliber of athletes participating is inferior. It takes only a look at the scouting numbers of some of your more athletic baseball players to know the most athletic among them are clearly superior in the base athletic skills to even the upper echelon of tennis players. Nobody in pro tennis history can hold an athletic candle to a Bo Jackson, or a Kenny Lofton. Put a racquet in Randy Johnson's hand from the time he's 12, and he'd make Karlovic look like a dinker.

Golf is far less a sport than even baseball, but Tiger Woods would be the most gifted athlete who ever stepped on a court if he became a pro tennis player tomorrow.

The best athletes are drawn to the best marketing opportunities, the biggest salaries, and the sports that culture forces upon them. Tennis loses on all fronts in the USA. 100% of the best athletes choose other sports, and tennis gets only the athletic dregs. In a sport where being arguably the greatest of all time gets you yearly earnings a bench-sitting scrub from a prominent sport would scoff at, you can't expect to do any better.

If all of America's best athletes, and the best athletes from around the world who play in American sports leagues, had trained in tennis from the time they were children, Federer wouldn't even cut it as a journeyman.
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you're right about baseball, i was saying that it is a bad playing field to gauge athletic potential because it requires so little. your tiger woods comment is moronic, he is a man among slobs. most sports have multiple men.
 
I think it as a regional thing as to what sports are concentrated on. In the US tennis is not in the forefront of what kids see and whom they idolize (which I think is the biggest reason kids play). Here in Canada kids learn to play hockey just as they learn to walk and wanted to be like Gretzky and now Sidney Crosby. So a great deal of a countries top athletes are involved in that countries top sport(s).
 
Hooooon said:
. nash couldn't make it in soccer, his feet are too slow (as they would be in tennis), his hands are unmatched though and he could possibly be a santoro-esque tennis player with a bit more power (top dubs player?).
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Whatt!!???
 
My bad, I know Nash is Canadian, I hurried my comparisons. Also, I guess in a way I am saying all pro players, like maybe Barbosa as well for the Suns.

I guess my main thing is if you look at your local high school, the top player on the tennis team is probably not even the top 10 athlete at their school. So in a way I feel we could see even better tennis if everyone had the resources at an early age to focus on it. I think tennis shuts the doors on kids much like golf because it is a financial burden that you have to invest in quite a bit just to see if you are going to be great at it, whereas you can play for free or for very low fees and become great at he mainstream sports.

Also, how many parents who are middle-income are going to invest money into tennis with a great athlete when they could sign them up for Little League or AAU for practically nothing?
 
Hooooon said:
nash and reyes are bad examples, but overall i agree. nash couldn't make it in soccer, his feet are too slow (as they would be in tennis), his hands are unmatched though and he could possibly be a santoro-esque tennis player with a bit more power (top dubs player?). baseball is such an uncompetitive and unathletic GAME that i'm insulted to hear it mentioned. basketball players (explosive nba shooting guards) are probably the best suited athletes for tennis. tennis is much more work, though, and much less pay. year round schedule, more physical aspects (explosiveness, endurance and skill as opposed to 1 or 2 of the 3), no coaching, more individual pressure.....
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Also, look at the money/game that the players earn. Baseball season is only something like 7 months and consists of 162 games, I think. And many players just sit around during the game, since only 9 can play at one time. Basketball is also around 7 months and has even fewer games with only 5 players playing at one time. Football (American) is only 5 months long and consists of 16 games. Again, most players sit on the bench as 11 play. And you think the best athletes would play tennis? Golf is not a sport; its a skill, like pool. Takes about the same amount of effort.
 
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Grimjack said:
You're committing a fallacy here. Just because the game of baseball doesn't necessarily require the same quantity of athletic skill as tennis, top-to-bottom, does not mean the caliber of athletes participating is inferior. It takes only a look at the scouting numbers of some of your more athletic baseball players to know the most athletic among them are clearly superior in the base athletic skills to even the upper echelon of tennis players. Nobody in pro tennis history can hold an athletic candle to a Bo Jackson, or a Kenny Lofton. Put a racquet in Randy Johnson's hand from the time he's 12, and he'd make Karlovic look like a dinker.

Golf is far less a sport than even baseball, but Tiger Woods would be the most gifted athlete who ever stepped on a court if he became a pro tennis player tomorrow.

The best athletes are drawn to the best marketing opportunities, the biggest salaries, and the sports that culture forces upon them. Tennis loses on all fronts in the USA. 100% of the best athletes choose other sports, and tennis gets only the athletic dregs. In a sport where being arguably the greatest of all time gets you yearly earnings a bench-sitting scrub from a prominent sport would scoff at, you can't expect to do any better.

If all of America's best athletes, and the best athletes from around the world who play in American sports leagues, had trained in tennis from the time they were children, Federer wouldn't even cut it as a journeyman.
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EXACTLY what he just said!!
 
Hooooon said:
randy johnson would trip over his goofy feet during his first lesson and break his red neck
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This made me laugh. I can just see it.

RJ would have an INSANE serve though. Imagine him out there with a Bab PD, leaded up, strung at like 50. Serving like 170.

Then he'd probably fall down and get hurt in the first rally.
 
Grimjack said:
You're committing a fallacy here. Just because the game of baseball doesn't necessarily require the same quantity of athletic skill as tennis, top-to-bottom, does not mean the caliber of athletes participating is inferior. It takes only a look at the scouting numbers of some of your more athletic baseball players to know the most athletic among them are clearly superior in the base athletic skills to even the upper echelon of tennis players. Nobody in pro tennis history can hold an athletic candle to a Bo Jackson, or a Kenny Lofton. Put a racquet in Randy Johnson's hand from the time he's 12, and he'd make Karlovic look like a dinker.

Golf is far less a sport than even baseball, but Tiger Woods would be the most gifted athlete who ever stepped on a court if he became a pro tennis player tomorrow.

The best athletes are drawn to the best marketing opportunities, the biggest salaries, and the sports that culture forces upon them. Tennis loses on all fronts in the USA. 100% of the best athletes choose other sports, and tennis gets only the athletic dregs. In a sport where being arguably the greatest of all time gets you yearly earnings a bench-sitting scrub from a prominent sport would scoff at, you can't expect to do any better.

If all of America's best athletes, and the best athletes from around the world who play in American sports leagues, had trained in tennis from the time they were children, Federer wouldn't even cut it as a journeyman.
Click to expand...
The definitive answer to this question.

Damn, Grim...sometimes you absolutely shine...that is, when you're not doing your enigmatic Bob Dylan impersonation.
 
Hooooon said:
nash and reyes are bad examples, but overall i agree. nash couldn't make it in soccer, his feet are too slow (as they would be in tennis), his hands are unmatched though and he could possibly be a santoro-esque tennis player with a bit more power (top dubs player?). baseball is such an uncompetitive and unathletic GAME that i'm insulted to hear it mentioned. basketball players (explosive nba shooting guards) are probably the best suited athletes for tennis. tennis is much more work, though, and much less pay. year round schedule, more physical aspects (explosiveness, endurance and skill as opposed to 1 or 2 of the 3), no coaching, more individual pressure.....
Click to expand...

Nash has slow feet?! Riiiight. Baseball is uncompetetive and unathletic? Yeah your not biased at all. (sarcasm)

I've long believed that the best athletes in America play sports that only Americans enjoy. If Derek Jeter, Ozzie Smith, Deon Sanders, or Allen Iverson had started playing tennis at the same age as Roddick and had the same oppuritunities they would smoke him.

I would also go as far as to say that if Americans cared as much about soccer as the rest of the world does, the US would have multiple World Cup victories.
 
How big was tennis in the us when we had the #1 players ie Sampras and Agassi? Did we care back then?

I was a kid back then so I never noticed.
 
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vince916 said:
How big was tennis in the us when we had the #1 players ie Sampras and Agassi? Did we care back then?

I was a kid back then so I never noticed.
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No man, nobody cared. Sampras was winning the biggest tennis tournament in the world every year and he could have still walked around times square without anyone recognizing him.
 
my main sport is cross country and i can beat this kid at tennis who plays all the time just because of my fitness level.

and if micheal johnson were to play tennis he would probably be ranked in the worlds top 5
 
edmondsm said:
Nash has slow feet?! Riiiight. Baseball is uncompetetive and unathletic? Yeah your not biased at all. (sarcasm)

I've long believed that the best athletes in America play sports that only Americans enjoy. If Derek Jeter, Ozzie Smith, Deon Sanders, or Allen Iverson had started playing tennis at the same age as Roddick and had the same oppuritunities they would smoke him.

I would also go as far as to say that if Americans cared as much about soccer as the rest of the world does, the US would have multiple World Cup victories.
Click to expand...

I'm with you there. I would have a very very hard time believing Kobe Bryant wouldn't be an insane tennis player if he started as a kid.
 
Best player on our high school team played #1 as a freshman and was nationally ranked
2nd best player didnt even really play tennis outside the season, played basketball, just fast with endurance with consistent strokes
 
tennisoh said:
Do you think Roddick and Blake would be our standouts right now? I think with all the sports kids today can play, the best athletes don't play tennis 9 times out of 10. Why you ask?

Mainly, it is a hard and expensive sport to pick up. You have to be good early to get sponsors so you don't pay thousands of dollars to go all over the world. In basketball, baseball and football you don't have pick your sport right away. Many top football players play basketball or baseball and the other way around all through high school.

Also, it has gotten to the point where in order to be great you have to basically leave your high school to either home school or go to an Academy. Most Americans don't want to do that. In the major team sports, you can play against crummy high school competition and still get drafted high.

Anyway, while I am not taking anything away from tennis players, I think they are not seeing the best athletes play their sport.

I'll give you some names of pro athletes that might have been great at tennis if they would have gone that way.

Jose Reyes-ss for the Mets
Steve Nash-g for the Suna
numerous NFL players, as well as other NBA and MLB players
not to mention hockey and soccer players as well
Click to expand...
What does "the best athlete" mean? Take the best basketball, baseball or American football players. Do you think their physical capabilities will give them any advantage on a tennis court? I don't think so. The ideal stature seems to be someone in the Federer, Sampras, Djokovic mold. It's not good to be too tall, because then you struggle with movement and shots to the body. It's not good to be too muscular, because this will affect you ability to be nibble on your feet and probably weigh you down. It's better to be lean and streamlined than stocky, because then you can achieve better efficiency in movement and leverage on strokes. At the highest level in all sports, the best athletes in the world compete. Considering how many people play tennis, after all this time, if the the most ripped, muscle bound athletes had the advantage in tennis, I'm sure we would have seen these types of athletes rising to the top by now, but we haven't. A successful tennis player needs to have athletic attributes suited to the sport. That's the most important thing. If a person has the athletic attributes to become heavyweight champion of the world, that's great, but it's not going to help them as a tennis player.
 
Grimjack said:
You're committing a fallacy here. Just because the game of baseball doesn't necessarily require the same quantity of athletic skill as tennis, top-to-bottom, does not mean the caliber of athletes participating is inferior. It takes only a look at the scouting numbers of some of your more athletic baseball players to know the most athletic among them are clearly superior in the base athletic skills to even the upper echelon of tennis players. Nobody in pro tennis history can hold an athletic candle to a Bo Jackson, or a Kenny Lofton. Put a racquet in Randy Johnson's hand from the time he's 12, and he'd make Karlovic look like a dinker.

Golf is far less a sport than even baseball, but Tiger Woods would be the most gifted athlete who ever stepped on a court if he became a pro tennis player tomorrow.

The best athletes are drawn to the best marketing opportunities, the biggest salaries, and the sports that culture forces upon them. Tennis loses on all fronts in the USA. 100% of the best athletes choose other sports, and tennis gets only the athletic dregs. In a sport where being arguably the greatest of all time gets you yearly earnings a bench-sitting scrub from a prominent sport would scoff at, you can't expect to do any better.

If all of America's best athletes, and the best athletes from around the world who play in American sports leagues, had trained in tennis from the time they were children, Federer wouldn't even cut it as a journeyman.
Click to expand...
Just because you have good general athletic ability, does not mean you would have been able to pick up any sport and beat the world's current best. We see a lot of very good athletes in tennis who still cannot reach the top echelons of the game. Tennis is more than pure athleticism in the way track and field is and technically it is more complicated than sports like baseball, basketball and American football. Technique is half the sport. There are better athletes on tour than a player like Nalbandian, but most of them cannot touch his ability on the court. It's good to be athletic, but that's not enough to make you a great tennis player.
 
Grimjack said:
You're committing a fallacy here. Just because the game of baseball doesn't necessarily require the same quantity of athletic skill as tennis, top-to-bottom, does not mean the caliber of athletes participating is inferior. It takes only a look at the scouting numbers of some of your more athletic baseball players to know the most athletic among them are clearly superior in the base athletic skills to even the upper echelon of tennis players. Nobody in pro tennis history can hold an athletic candle to a Bo Jackson, or a Kenny Lofton. Put a racquet in Randy Johnson's hand from the time he's 12, and he'd make Karlovic look like a dinker.

Golf is far less a sport than even baseball, but Tiger Woods would be the most gifted athlete who ever stepped on a court if he became a pro tennis player tomorrow.

The best athletes are drawn to the best marketing opportunities, the biggest salaries, and the sports that culture forces upon them. Tennis loses on all fronts in the USA. 100% of the best athletes choose other sports, and tennis gets only the athletic dregs. In a sport where being arguably the greatest of all time gets you yearly earnings a bench-sitting scrub from a prominent sport would scoff at, you can't expect to do any better.

If all of America's best athletes, and the best athletes from around the world who play in American sports leagues, had trained in tennis from the time they were children, Federer wouldn't even cut it as a journeyman.
Click to expand...

You're taking even golf as an example? Those fat slobs are in no way some great athletes and golf is not even a sport.Being a great athlete in tennis is not as crucial as in some other sports otherwise how could a guy like Santoro beat great athletes like Safin or Sampras?How could Brad Gilbert beat an athletic stud like Becker? John Mcenroe was a not 1/10 of an athlete Borg was yet he is the one that forced Borg into retirement.Sampras's serve is the best ever not because he served 250 km but because of his great disguise and placement.I'm sure James Blake is faster than Federer but his defense is not nearly as good because his anticipation is much worse.BTW tennis is not the only sport where USA isn't at the top,there is also soccer(world's most popular sport even if I personally don't like it),basketball,even MMA(Fedor Emelianenko is the best MMA fighter in the world).Most people otuside the USA don't care about watching football or baseball.
 
David L said:
What does "the best athlete" mean? Take the best basketball, baseball or American football players. Do you think their physical capabilities will give them any advantage on a tennis court? I don't think so. The ideal stature seems to be someone in the Federer, Sampras, Djokovic mold. It's not good to be too tall, because then you struggle with movement and shots to the body. It's not good to be too muscular, because this will affect you ability to be nibble on your feet and probably weigh you down. It's better to be lean and streamlined than stocky, because then you can achieve better efficiency in movement and leverage on strokes. At the highest level in all sports, the best athletes in the world compete. Considering how many people play tennis, after all this time, if the the most ripped, muscle bound athletes had the advantage in tennis, I'm sure we would have seen these types of athletes rising to the top by now, but we haven't. A successful tennis player needs to have athletic attributes suited to the sport. That's the most important thing. If a person has the athletic attributes to become heavyweight champion of the world, that's great, but it's not going to help them as a tennis player.
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Uh, I don't think you're understanding here. I garuntee you none of these so called speedy tennis players could keep up with the likes of T.O., Randy Moss, or LeBron in terms of speed, strength, or agility. They all have great hands too, because their sports require good hands.
 
NamRanger said:
Uh, I don't think you're understanding here. I garuntee you none of these so called speedy tennis players could keep up with the likes of T.O., Randy Moss, or LeBron in terms of speed, strength, or agility. They all have great hands too, because their sports require good hands.
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Exactly. Look at LeBron James at 6'8, Michael Jordan at 6'6', old Penny Hardaway at 6'7', Scottie Pippen at 6'7', Magic Johnson at 6'9', Steve Nash at 6'4', Tony Parker at 6'2'. All of them could outrun the fastest tennis player (with the exception of Borg, who was a freak of nature)
 
Andres Guazzelli said:
Exactly. Look at LeBron James at 6'8, Michael Jordan at 6'6', old Penny Hardaway at 6'7', Scottie Pippen at 6'7', Magic Johnson at 6'9', Steve Nash at 6'4', Tony Parker at 6'2'. All of them could outrun the fastest tennis player (with the exception of Borg, who was a freak of nature)
Click to expand...


That's true, Borg is just a freak of nature.
 
David L said:
What does "the best athlete" mean? Take the best basketball, baseball or American football players. Do you think their physical capabilities will give them any advantage on a tennis court? I don't think so. The ideal stature seems to be someone in the Federer, Sampras, Djokovic mold. It's not good to be too tall, because then you struggle with movement and shots to the body. It's not good to be too muscular, because this will affect you ability to be nibble on your feet and probably weigh you down. It's better to be lean and streamlined than stocky, because then you can achieve better efficiency in movement and leverage on strokes. At the highest level in all sports, the best athletes in the world compete. Considering how many people play tennis, after all this time, if the the most ripped, muscle bound athletes had the advantage in tennis, I'm sure we would have seen these types of athletes rising to the top by now, but we haven't. A successful tennis player needs to have athletic attributes suited to the sport. That's the most important thing. If a person has the athletic attributes to become heavyweight champion of the world, that's great, but it's not going to help them as a tennis player.
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If they wouldn't have played basketball, baseball, ect as a child, they wouldn't be so muscular. Simple as that. Too tall? Marat Safin is 6'4 and is said to be one of the most talented on the tour, his head just gets in the way.
 
David L said:
Just because you have good general athletic ability, does not mean you would have been able to pick up any sport and beat the world's current best. We see a lot of very good athletes in tennis who still cannot reach the top echelons of the game. Tennis is more than pure athleticism in the way track and field is and technically it is more complicated than sports like baseball, basketball and American football. Technique is half the sport. There are better athletes on tour than a player like Nalbandian, but most of them cannot touch his ability on the court. It's good to be athletic, but that's not enough to make you a great tennis player.
Click to expand...

You're missing the point here. Who said pick up any sport? Nobody. The scenario we are looking at here is if the States top athletes, all grew up playing tennis. You can't base it on such a small example like that. Just because you are a great athlete, doesn't mean you can't have good technique. Look at Jordan, he could jump, he could run, he was quick, yet he had a perfect jumpshot. Look at Tiger, he's an insane athlete, so does he have a bad golf swing. You can't honestly believe that with all the crazy athletes filling up our proffesional leagues, that some of them couldn't reach the top of the game.
 
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How does anyone know that Tiger is an insane athlete? He's the best golfer in the world but Golf is a totally different animal. Is there footage somewhere that shows him dunking a basketball, juking Iverson, running a 4.3 40? If there is then I apologize.

I see some of these football players, basketball players, etc. trying to hit a golf ball, swing a tennis racquet, and they look like fish out of water. I never played tennis as a kid but I can guarantee you I looked better when I first started.

And to say that baseball players are unathletic means you just don't know the game. Granted, some baseball players are unathletic but if you look at middle infielders and some outfielders, these are incredible athletes. These guys have the athletic ability and hand-eye coordination to definitely excel at tennis. I like to compare hitting a baseball to returning serve. A lot of ex-baseball players I know are very good at tennis.

I would also say that Blake and Roddick are great athletes. I remember seeing footage of Roddick dunking a basketball. And I'm sure Blakes athleticism and speed could translate well to other sports.
 
If I had an extremely athletic daughter, I would push her to tennis instead of soccer. A silly atheltic woman can just clean up.
 
NamRanger said:
Uh, I don't think you're understanding here. I garuntee you none of these so called speedy tennis players could keep up with the likes of T.O., Randy Moss, or LeBron in terms of speed, strength, or agility. They all have great hands too, because their sports require good hands.
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So what they're speedy? No ones saying they're not quick or athletic. I'm questioning whether they would have made great tennis players. Also, just because you have good hands in one sport, does not mean you will have good hands in another.
 
I think its safe to say we haven't seen the Michael Jordan of tennis yet.

A total dominating player with strength, speed, and athleticism that's never been seen. 6' 10", 4.3 40 speed, crushing average serves at 160mph, kick serves bouncing over the returners reach, hitting winners regularly over 110mph with and without topspin, unpassable by the highest standard of passing shots hit today.

All court player on all surfaces.

He's out there, somewhere, but he isn't playing tennis.
 
Noveson said:
You're missing the point here. Who said pick up any sport? Nobody. The scenario we are looking at here is if the States top athletes, all grew up playing tennis. You can't base it on such a small example like that. Just because you are a great athlete, doesn't mean you can't have good technique. Look at Jordan, he could jump, he could run, he was quick, yet he had a perfect jumpshot. Look at Tiger, he's an insane athlete, so does he have a bad golf swing. You can't honestly believe that with all the crazy athletes filling up our proffesional leagues, that some of them couldn't reach the top of the game.
Click to expand...
I understand the point being made. I'm disagreeing with the premise that just because you are athletic and became great in one sport, you would have become great in another sport had you taken that up instead. Sports are unique and require specific skills that are not always equally transferable. So you might be a great basketball player, but that in no way indicates you would have become a great figure skater, tennis player, golfer, snooker player, downhill skier etc. Equally, you might be a great concert pianist, but this does not mean you would have become a great violinist, trumpet player, jazz musician etc.

Particularly when sports are more technical, the question of transferable athletic skills becomes more complex. I recall reading a story about an American university student who played both baseball and tennis for his university, but decided he was going to try and pursue a baseball career because he found the competition tougher in tennis.

Most great athletes have athleticism, speed, quick reactions, great co-ordination etc, but this alone would not have necessarily been enough to make them great in any sport of their choosing. A specific set of skills still have to be learnt, and some display a greater affinity for acquiring a certain set of skills than others, despite sharing similar athletic attributes. Look at Monfils, clearly a very capable tennis player with some of the strongest athletic attributes on tour, yet players like Nalbandian, Gasquet, Federer, Agassi, Blake, Davydenko and many others have greater tennis ability and talent, despite displaying less obvious and transferable athleticism. Of all these players, Monfils looks like he would have made the better basketball player, for example, but this has not made him a stand out on a tennis court. Why? Different sport, different set of imponderable skills and requirements.
 
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