Until Lebron becomes an All-Star in a second professional sport, I'm taking Bo all day long. Not sure about Serena. Clearly she's the best female tennis player of all time, but not sure about all-around athlete. Not horrible form, but she doesn't look like a natural
here.
It's an interesting question. And as the resident Serena superfan here, I'm going to ruminate on it, because I'm hydrating after a long night out.
If Serena saw a path where, 10 years down the line, after obsessive-compulsive practice and film study, she could go out and straight
crush fools in another sport, she might take it up. She pretty much feeds off the pain of the vanquished, like a tennis dementor. Hates practice, hates conditioning, but puts up with it solely because of how good it feels curtsying to a cheering crowd after she's sent another tall eastern european blonde to the showers. She is not the most physically gifted female athlete I've ever seen, though she's not too far off, but it's her
mentality (and problem-solving ability on the court) that has made her what she is.
The problem is that no other sport for women has the kind of talent depth that tennis does, so it's a natural choice for where to find the best female athletes. The talent depth in female tennis today is frequently compared to itself in other eras, and also to the depth in men's tennis. That the comparison
is made at all speaks volumes; it's the only sport in which such comparisons are even made in non-mocking terms. So then you compare to the LPGA, and yeah, Serena could teach herself how to hit, but she's never going to really end up standing over the metaphorical corpse of someone she has crushed, so I'm not sure it'd excite her that much. But even if she were motivated, there will be other golfers who can make shots she'll never gain the reps to make. Likewise, she's not going to have the eye-foot coordination of a Carli Lloyd, nor the straight distance endurance of most olympic runners, nor the flexibility and body control of a gymnast. Her footwork on the court, when at her best, is world class, but that's rote practice and muscle memory rather than extraordinary genetics.
She's not without pure athletic assets - she's willing to
suffer on the court, beyond the breaking point of many professionals, in order to turn a match around and outlast someone. That's Rafael Nadal's calling card, for example, and it's won him titles and admiration. Her eye-hand coordination on volleys and at net is great, though not especially so among the top 100 tennis players. Balance and body control to hit with her trademark power, that's athleticism. Her GOAT-level serving ability... well, you have to read your opponent, know what their weakness is at any given time, and then execute to one of 3 locations (T, wide, body) with one of several spins or deliveries, a high percentage of the time. It's probably comparable to pitching, and she's definitely the Pedro of tennis serving. But that requires only a certain amount of athletic talent, probably not all that far off the bell curve - and then an
absurd amount of mental focus.
So what's made her what she is is probably 60% mental abilities manifested in ways from game tactics to shot consistency, 30% willingness to out-practice and out-suffer people on the court, and 10% god-given talent to hit super powerful groundstrokes and top-of-tour serve speeds. Is she as much of a natural even at her chosen sport as, say, Steffi Graf was? Probably not. Was she born to dominate a sport of her choosing the way, I dunno, an olympic Heptathlete like Jessica Ennis was? Or a basketball natural like Elena Delle Donne? Or Katie Ledecky? Probably not. Yeah, I think there's a meaningful difference there: Serena Williams, for all her gifts, probably could never become (and could never
have become) a world-class athlete in swimming, track and field, gymnastics, stuff that worships youth, insists on a body type, and relies on genetic physical gifts more than anything. I could see her practicing the shit out of something as a second career, and ending up dominating a shallower pool, like in (say) shooting or rowing or, hell, even wrestling. Something where her mental focus delivers a premium. It'd be awesome, too. But I think that's categorically different.
Yeah, I dunno if I'd pair her with Lebron to make super-children. She's the best in the world at the sport with the deepest female talent pool in the world, but she's all that through a combination of things that just aren't hereditary, not in the same way that an explosive first step and an absurd physique are hereditary.