I, being a very big Tennis fan, will say Federer is the better athlete than Tiger. Although i will say for now that Tiger has more competition.
Federer is just so good right now. He needs someone to legitimatly challenge him on a consistant basis (Nadal?) to create more of a rivalry. If this happens, Tennis should take off once again.
If a Federer/ Nadal rivalry could take off like Agassi/Sampras or McEnroe/Conners, I'm sure Federer will get even more credit for his greatness.
Unfortunetly, Federer has been very dominant, but there has been no consistent number two seed for quite awhile (Roddick, Nadal and a few others). This leads the casual tennis fan to believe that the competition is possibly just not as strong as when Sampras dominated.
Tiger, OTOH, has had Mickelson, Furyk, Vijay Singh, Duval (a few years ago), Davis Love III etc.. who are all considered to be some of the best to ever play Golf. I don't think you can say that about Federers competition.
Just as an aside, Federer has got to be one of the most classy players in sports, period. His gentle nature is actually part of the reason he doesn't get as much fanfare as a Conners or McEnroe did in their time, because they were such strong personalities. This is why Roddick has a large fanbase IMO.
Back to Federer, how many competitive athletes can you name that would invite a guy who just beat you (Nadal) on your corporate jet to fly to the next tourstop, after he found out that Nadal's flight was cancelled? Federer is just all class. When James Blake was out of tennis for a year with an injury, Federer was the ONLY player on the tour who called him in the hospital and wished him well.
Last edited by HitterD; 09-10-2007 at 10:48 AM.
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