Let us for a minute extend the benefit of the doubt to the 12% of men who believe they could take a point from Serena Williams in a tennis match, no doubt further emboldened by her defeat in the Wimbledon final.

For who can say what manner of fugue state they fell into as they answered a simple polling question? Could they have collectively imagined, as they pictured the holder of 23 grand slam titles shaping up to serve, a freak calamity overtaking her? A sinkhole opening up on her side of the net, perhaps, or a thunderbolt sent by a jealous athletic god; or, in more sinister fashion, a tripwire rigged up by an incel saboteur to fell her as she rushed in for the volley.

No: social media chatter suggested that what many of these tsars of self-belief were relying on was an unforced error – specifically a double fault. Such pyrrhic victory would not, it seems, worry them; a point, after all, is a point.

But we walk a tightrope when we condemn such apparently delusional thinking in the sporting arena; for where else are we supposed to indulge our fantasies of combining physical prowess, technical skill and mental toughness in pursuit of lifting a gilded trophy above our heads?