Why isn’t Roger Federer a full blown sporting god?

I’ll admit to following tennis…but only to a point.  Agassi vs. Sampras could be keep me from flipping the channel.  Serena Williams’ meltdown at the US Open last year?  Absolutely captivating stuff.

So while I can appreciate the sport for what it is, if I’m channel surfing and I stumble onto a tennis match featuring a Slovakian stiff I’ve never heard of playing a wild haired Spaniard whose name I can barely place, I’m flipping the channel.  Even “Golden Girls” reruns are more attractive to me at that point.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can already predict the reaction from any tennis aficionado who reads this.  “You just can’t appreciate the grace and athletic skill of these great athletes.  If you just stopped and watched, you too would develop the same appreciation!”

Spare me.  Even with its constant huddling, football appears to offer up more action than any given tennis match.  For being such accomplished athletes, shouldn’t these yahoos have figured out how to get more first serves in?  I mean really, it’s TOTALLY QUIET and you bounced the ball like 15 times in preparation…what other athletic endeavor sets up the competitor to succeed more than this?

But I’m getting way off track here.  Let me finally get to the subject I wanted to get to, that being Roger Federer.  Now this is a guy who’s a channel stopper with me, if he’s playing, then I’m watching.  By most standards, he’s pretty much the most accomplished men’s tennis player ever, having won more Grand Slam tournaments (16) than any other male player.

When he was eliminated this week in the quarterfinals of the French Open, it ended a streak of 23 straight semifinal appearances at Grand Slam tournaments.  It’s an extremely impressive feat, the equivalent of DiMaggio hitting safely in 56 straight or the Dolphins completing an unbeaten season.

But despite all of his great accomplishments, Federer does not transcend his sport the way Tiger Woods has managed to transcend golf.  Tiger pulls people into golf who had no previous interest in the sport.  Oh, Gatorade will try to make you think that Federer is transcendent, but in terms of marketability, he hasn’t even surpassed fellow tennis icons like Sampras, Agassi or John McEnroe.

Look at this way, if a guy were dominating the NBA the way Federer has dominated tennis, that person would be bigger than Michael Jordan, he’d be LeBron James times 20.  That’s both a testament to Federer’s greatness and a reminder that he’s arguably the most under-appreciated athlete to come down the pike in a long time.

Why is the general sporting public seemingly so indifferent to this guy?  It’s a combination of the following:

He’s got zero personality - Let me qualify this one by saying that a great personality isn’t necessarily possessed by our  most beloved athletes.  With his bug eyes and irritating voice, Tiger Woods couldn’t get the time of day in a clock store if he didn’t know how to swing a golf club.

But personality helps a lot, and Federer’s got very little of it.  I’m in no way insisting that his lack of charisma should be held against him.  However, it helps explain why he’s not more in demand from Madison Avenue.  When you’re charismatic, people want to see more of you, even if you’re not that the most talented thing going.  But when you lack charisma, you can slip from the public’s conscience.

He’s not American - Americans tend to follow their own, as do citizens of any country.  Federer’s from Switzerland, so while hard core tennis fans in the States have no problem embracing him, the casual sports fan in this country does not see him as one of their own.

Beyond that, Federer hasn’t had a truly great American rival to play off of during his run of dominance (Andy Roddick?  Please.).  So when the United States isn’t producing its own great players, why would the casual fan care about a guy from Switzerland?

He cried like a baby in front of the world - You ever let the tear ducts flow in front of friends and family?  Did they show you a ton of sympathy afterward and commend you for your show of emotion?  That’s nice, but once they got away from you, they all talked about how uncomfortable and creepy they felt watching you sob. Sorry, but somebody had to tell you the truth.

After losing the Australian Open final to Rafael Nadal back in 2009, Federer got as weepy as your mom did after she saw “Steel Magnolias” for the first time.  His anguish probably stemmed from the fact that he thought Nadal was going to dominate him for the foreseeable future, thus keeping him from breaking the Grand Slam record.  In hindsight, we know that Rafa’s injuries kept the door open for Federer.

But when MILLIONS of people see you weep like a six-year old, that has a lasting impact.  That wasn’t a few tears of frustration over an opportunity lost, that was a full on, lip quivering sob session.  And at the end of the day, the casual fan can’t really warm up to a cry baby: