doubt

The end of January also marks the end of another fine Australian Open. To what should be no one's surprise, Roger Federer is once again champion, losing a grand total of zero sets.

Yet, if you were paying attention to the sports world late last week, you would have thought that this year's Aussi Open would be the beginning of a new era, one in which Andy Roddick would overcome his past demons and at last triumph over Federer. It was quite unbelievable to see how much hype the sports media put into the Andy Roddick Experience -- they seemed to feel fairly confident that this would be Roddick's year.

But what gave them such confidence? In short, it was a decent start to 2007 for Roddick, strong play during the early rounds of the Aussie Open, and a newfound ability to play at the net. Unappreciative tennis fans and the sports media generally made one fatal mistake, however: they failed to consider Roger Federer himself.

If these people had spent 30 seconds or so actually looking into the world's most underappreciated athlete, they would have seen that there was no reason to think that Federer would fail. At this point, you have to give Federer the benefit of the doubt in any situation. Most people didn't, and so it was great to see Federer absolutely destroy Roddick in the semis in straight sets.

Federer should be the type of athlete on par with Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan. By that I mean that just as who those who don't pay attention to sports know of Woods and MJ, they should know about Federer as well. I think the only way this is going to happen is if Federer wins the Grand Slam. I hope he does and we'll all be able to witness history.