great article. I much appreciate a true unbiased article like this. It is a pity that Roger Federer's true talent is not noticed so much in US. Maybe Nike and Wilson should do some commercials about Roger and promote him more. Roger will be perhaps the greatest tennis player of all time. He has all the shots in the book and he has the most unique ability of all the great tennis players. Roger is more popular in Asia(the biggest market in the future) than Tiger Woods and Dwayne Wade, which seems to suggest that there is a very big bias in USA when it comes to appreciating a athlete's talent based on their country of birth. Roger Federer is a Legend!

America WAKE UP! before a true genius of the beautiful game leaves his racquet down.

The reason for Federer not receiving his due credit? He's not American. there is definitely a strong bias in the US favoring US sportspersons. If Federer had been American, by now every writer worth his/her $0.02 would have anointed him as the greatest athlete on the planet ever, or at least the greatest athlete today.

Tiger Woods is great, but not as great as Federer. Tiger has never, and probably never will, win 8 majors in 3 years. Nobody ever has. Federer has. His domination of tennis over the last 3 years is unparalled. And its not due to lack of competition at all - it seems so because he makes everyone else look so ordinary, and doesn't let anyone else win anything else. If Federer had not been there, we would have a couple of Sampras's and Agassi's amongst the mix today.

I agree with Raj in that Federer's not being American probably has something to do with the lack of interest in tennis today in the US. However, I am also wary of the comparisons between Federer and Woods going around these days (just google "Federer Woods"), which I think, to use a very old cliche, is very much like comparing apples and oranges.

Golf and tennis are very different games. Tiger Woods has to deal with many different golf courses and locations around the world, which vary wildly in their characteristics (Federer has to play on different surfaces but at least the court dimensions remain the same). On the other hand, Roger Federer has to win a match in a few hours so that it's harder for him to come back from a bad spot while Woods can do so over many days. So, in all fairness, I think we should either look at both games very closely, or stop making comparisons on the basis a few statistical facts, and instead feel lucky to be living in the same age as these great athletes.

I agree that golf and tennis are two different sports but the degree of difficulty in tennis is much greater than golf.

In golf, you play a course and not your opponents face-to-face. Even though you play it with all of them at once, you still get to play your own game without them necessarily affecting it. There's no strategy needed here as you already know where the ball is supposed to go. You'll only need technique and the proper club from a bag-full of different clubs to get it there in as fewer strokes as possible. Physically, the fact that you can play it till you're 60 means there's no demand for great effort and energy.

In tennis, you play against an opponent, face-to-face. You have to play the ball within the boundaries of a court and have to contend with an umpire and 12 or more linesmen that make judgment calls that may be good or bad and could change the direction of the game. Both technique and strategy are necessary in tennis and your game is only good when you're able to apply it because your opponent has his own game and strategy that you need to adjust to. You have to be both physically and mentally fit to be able to play because matches could last for hours and your opponent could psyche you out and change pace anytime.

I'm going for Federer over Woods as the greater player just because tennis is a more difficult sport and to some people, golf is still a leisure sport that just got mainstream because it's an American that's winning it.

Yes, I think that Americans have a bit of problem recognizing someone that isn't theirs. But nothing is as real and present as Federer and I hope Americans just stop being jingoistic already.

How much credit did Martina Navratilova get before she became a US citizen?

Didn't the press finally stop castigating Lendl as the quintessential villain only after he took up US citizenship.

Would Borg have been popular if he did not have the great Americans Connors or McEnroe on the other end of the net - and lost to them a bunch of times at the US Open?

Patrick Rafter played a serve a volley game that only an Aussie could. He won back to back US Opens. What recognition did he receive in the media other than being on the other end of verbal trashing by Sampras?

How about Vijay Singh. And who's he? He is the only golfer ever to dethrone Tiger Woods at the #1 spot. Had it been a David Toms or Phil Michelson or Jim Furyk imagine the buzz that would have created? Their endoresements would have run into hundreds of millions. What do we remember about Vijay? He just works hard on the practice range.

Then there are Brian Laras and Ricky Pontings that no one knows of in the US. If Shane Warne were an American, it is not far fetched to guess he'd the most visible American.

This is a cycle. The US media relentlessly push the hype that the US playes are the best. So the US public care less about foreign players. The media feeds them more hyperhole and half truths. And this continues.

Amid all this it is hard to sport a true gem. So is the genius of Federer, that his fellow players are singing his praise, and the media is finally finding it hard to ignore.

But, wait. You cannot simply cannot give him the greatest of all time title yet. He hasnt' shown the slightest inclination to relocate to Florida or apply for a green card.

Until then he will remain just a great Swiss player, a contender for the title of the greatest.

Remember, he hasn't won the French yet. Remember he hasn't won 14 GSs yet? But let's say he does in due course. But yu have to remember he hasn't faced the competition that Sampras faced in his time - the likes of feisty Courier, Agassi (let's ignore Roger played Andre 11 times, and even beat Sampras at Wimbledon), the mighty Micheal Chang, the serve and volley Becker and Edberg, the great spaniard named Moya, etc.

See the Roddicks, Nadals, Safins, Hewitts, Nalbandians are just ordinary club players, even though most of them beat Sampras (obviously when he's not at his best). I wonder what they feel about that?