Tiger Woods Wants to be More Nuetral

I think I might give tennis a shot.

I never really cared about it too much - except for Michael Chang on the USA channel; makes sense - but if Andy Roddick is gonna be a bad ass and say chippy things to announcers and get a rivalry going with Federer, well...I could be down with that.

I was watching a little of the Roddick-Federer US Open Championship match, and it was actaully pretty good. Damn good, actually. Better than the Cowboys-Jaguars game, anyways. The action was intense, they were hitting some crazy shots, making athletic plays, neither player seemed to be able to score more than two times in a row (do you even say "score" in tennis?)...and then Roddick faded. But it was fun while it lasted. First rate entertainment. Jolly good time, chap!

So why watch now? Well, there was an American with a personality in the finals of the US Open. One and only reason. If it was Federer-Nadal, I would have passed. (Pony tails and capri pants? Um, I'm good.) In an individual sport, all you need is personality. And a rivalry. That's all you need. If tennis has had one of these in the past five years, I didn't know. My bad. But I know now. So I'm gonna watch. As long as Roddick keeps being good and brash, anyways.

As I was watching, though, I noticed Tiger was there. Tiger Woods. And I saw him clapping abd trying to pretend to be cool with his backwards hat and everything...but I kept noticing they would only show him whenever Federer did well (I was watching with no volume). After turning the volume up, I realized he was cheering for Federer. For Federer!

Does anyone else find this...um, wrong? Tiger's American! Federer is Swiss! Roddick is American! Who should he be cheering for?

I understand they are buds and all (wonder who approached who? Had to have been Tiger calling Roger...no way Federer has the balls to dial up El Tigre), but shouldn't Tigers loyalties lie with his nation?

Remember when Wayne Gretzky's wife was cheering for the Canadian hockey team? She got absolutely hammered for that. Well...what's the difference? An American cheering for a foreign entity to beat the homeland.

And yea, I get that the Olympics are an international competition, and this was merely a tournament where allegiance to country isn't exactly relevant...but still. Say this was the Olympics. Would Tiger change his stripes (ba-zing!) and cheer on his fellow countyman? Or would he stay with his new best bud Rog and cheer against the US? What if Roddick is cheering for Europe in the Ryder Cup, against Tiger? Would that be OK?

Its kinda like that movie The Fox and the Hound. That's a kind of obscure Disney movie for kids, and if you've seen it, you got the reference. If you haven't seen it, well...you don't and I'm sorry you had to sit through this paragrpah. It wasn't really for you.

I can understand Tiger wanting to cheer on his boy and all...but maybe he should have done it from his living room. At least then we wouldn't have to see him trying to be cool with that backwards hat that doesn't fit.