Woods and Federer Win, Remind Us of Their Greatness

On Sunday, the world of sports put a great cap on Independence Day Weekend. The stage was set for today’s most dominating athletes to shine and both glimmered brightly. As usual.

To start, I’ll admit, I’m not the biggest Roger Federer fan but the man can play. No getting around that. We all were rooting for Andy Roddick to pull one out for the Red, White, and Blue, but once again he couldn’t match Federer’s almost boring perfection during their grass-court battle.

Unquestionably, Roddick gave a wonderful effort, playing the best he ever has against Federer, but that shows how great of a player Roger Federer really is.

During their record-breaking match that ended 16-14 in the fifth set, the commentators were marveling at how Roddick seemed to have control of the match, an advantage he’s never had against Federer before, but the 15-time major champion didn’t fold, even with Pete Sampras over his shoulder.

The guy has been to seven straight Wimbledon Finals. Gimme a break. He’s one of those polarized athletes—you either love him or hate him, but you’ve got to awe at the mental cool and physical prowess he’s displayed while he’s been on top of tennis.

Rafael Nadal still looms as Federer's biggest rival, but I’ll take Federer any day, on just about any surface.

After Federer won Wimbledon for the sixth time in seven years, we all knew Tiger Woods needed to respond. He couldn’t answer with a major victory of his own, but a win Sunday would be his 68th victory, which demostrates Woods' longevity of dominance on the PGA Tour. Also, Tiger never likes to be overshadowed.

Woods went into the final round tied for the lead, lost it, then sealed the win on Congressionals’ final holes. Clockwork. He’s never relinquished a 54-hole lead and he remains the best closer in sports history.

We all are lucky to be witnesses to Woods and Federer’s greatness simultaneously, and we really need to take it all in. Not only do they stay calm and collected in times when their competitors are seemingly in a panic, but they never take their feet off the gas. I don’t think there are any other athletes who are more competitive.

There’s a huge difference between being competitive—wanting to win like everyone does, and desiring and more importantly, expecting to win. We haven’t seen two athletes command their respective sports like this in a while—we need to soak it all up.