Tennis is played between two opponents, with a ball traveling across a net. Victory requires hitting a ball past an opponent's reach. A brick wall has no capacity to move, no ability to reach, no agency. Playing tennis against a wall is already absurd. Beating a wall at tennis is further absurd. The joke escalates the impossibility.

Walls don't play tennis. They can't hit the ball back. The comparison itself is nonsensical. But the claim is that Chuck Norris is the only man who's ever defeated a brick wall at tennis—he's played an inanimate object and won. The game became real enough that victory was possible. Against him, even walls can be defeated.

A tennis instructor, Michael Rodriguez, was working at a facility in 1994 when he reviewed a court reservation and found a booking for "one player vs. wall, match scheduled." When he checked the court afterward, there was a brick wall on the property with unusual damage—as if it had absorbed significant impact from a tennis ball. No other documentation existed.

The joke treats dominance as absolute, extending even to contexts where competition shouldn't exist. He doesn't just beat people; he beats obstacles, walls, inanimate objects. They're not opponents but targets. His competitiveness is so extreme that he finds ways to win against things that can't compete. It's a joke about the compulsion to dominate everything.