Serena Williams, currently the top-ranked woman in her sport, is no mere tennis player. She is a tennis technician, capable of firing a tennis ball back at her opponent with staggering precision and force. The guys from Dude Perfect, a popular, sports-themed YouTube channel built around incredible trick shots, recently had an opportunity to witness Williams’ mastery of tennis up close when she stopped by to participate in their latest video. “Tennis Trick Shots” is seven minutes of pure athletic awesomeness, a testament to just how good Williams is at her sport. She can pop a water balloon with a tennis ball. She can knock a canister off a man’s head, William Tell style. She can hit a moving target. And not one of the five members of the Dude Perfect team can even score a single point off her. She even excels at completely ridiculous challenges, like using an oversized novelty racket to hit a tennis ball into a basketball hoop.
Williams proves to be a good sport as well, gamely answering the questions posed to her by Dude Perfect. Her favorite snacks, she reveals, are jalapeño chips. She prefers Toaster Strudels to Pop Tarts, forever settling that breakfast debate. If she could be named after a planet, she would choose Venus. But doesn’t her sister already have that name? “Well,” Williams explains, “I wouldn’t want to be Earth or Mercury.” What about Pluto? “Pluto’s technically not a planet anymore.” So take that, Pluto. She even takes time to teach the guys how to do her signature grunt. “You just gotta go for it,” she says. “You gotta feel it from your soul.”