Non-athletic adults can't do anything consistently. Which sports do you think are easier? Certainly not baseball or American football. Perhaps soccer, but only because soccer is more generous about inconsistency: play doesn't stop if you lose the ball or kick it inaccurately, as long as it doesn't go out of bounds. On the other hand, non-athletic adults are going to tire very quickly constantly running around the field with no stoppage.
> probably not too dissimilar from the skill floor required to play baseball
I think baseball requires significantly more coordination than tennis.
Moreover, baseball (as opposed to just playing catch with a baseball) requires two whole teams, whereas tennis can be played with only two people.
> ice hockey
[John McEnroe voice] You cannot be serious
Ice skating by itself is difficult for beginners. They fall all over the place. Ice skating while trying to follow and control a moving puck is even more difficult.
> it's not about fitness
Ok, but in the current context, the ROI of exercise, it's all about fitness. What's the fitness ROI from table tennis or badminton? Even pickleball tends to be less exercise than standard singles tennis. And in baseball too, there's a lot of standing around and sitting (when your team is at bat). I would say that in terms of exercise, singles tennis has one of the best ROI. (Doubles not so much.)
I played ice hockey with the other children in my ordinary Swedish elementary school class. It went fine. The puck is mostly on the ice, so you can struggle over getting it and shooting at the goal. Those who actually played ice hockey obviously had a major advantage, but the others were able to play.
In the current context fitness matters, that wasn't the context of my statement about what makes tennis hard: what makes tennis hard isn't fitness. It's that people can't control a ball with a racket that actually keeps the energy in the ball.
> It went fine.
> you can struggle
We may have different criteria for "fine".
In any case, the debate between hockey and tennis is largely moot, because the availability of ice skating rinks is vastly more limited than tennis courts, even in Minnesota and Wisconsin, though I can't speak for Sweden.
Yes, but the struggle is against the other players-- they'll be in the way, taking the puck, etc.
But everyone, even the foreigners, could skate. It was normal.
Soccer you play even if you badly, because the ball is on the ground, but playing soccer well is very hard.
Tennis you can't play truly badly since the ball is in the air, so there's a skill floor, probably not too dissimilar from the skill floor required to play baseball.
Some sports that have a lower skill floor than tennis are table tennis, pickeball, badminton, association football and ice hockey. The thing to understand is that it's not about fitness, it's the skill floor. It's that the beginner will miss the ball or not be able to control it.