Roger Federer Deserved Sportsman of the Year
January 4th, 2008 by Lucas DwyerOnce again, Sports Illustrated has ignored the most dominant player in all of sports.
While the various merits of Roger Federer’s career have been debated ad nauseum (Is Federer more impressive than Tiger Woods?, Is Federer better than Pete Sampras?, or is Federer even human?) no one disagrees that Federer has been a worthy candidate for the number of end-of-year achievement awards handed out by a multitude of sports journalist entities.
Roger Federer’s amazing achievements, year after year, continue to get ignored.
None is more acclaimed than Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year award, an award Federer has astonishingly never won. 2008 proved no different with Brett Favre’s admirable year garnering him the award over another ho-hum dominant season from Federer.
Consider his 2008 athletic achievements alone: In 2007 he set the alltime record for consecutive weeks ranked No. 1 at 205 and counting; he won a record fourth consecutive U.S. Open; a fifth consecutive Wimbledon; and three of the four grand slam events. His off the court efforts as a UNICEF international Goodwill Ambassador is well-documented and he was awarded the Laurenus Sportsman of the Year Award. As amazing as all of this is, it’s Roger’s second consecutive year of all of these achievements.
No one is saying he needs to win the award ever year, but how has he not won it once?
