On the Couch / Sorry Roger, Tiger and Caster, I just can't put you down

Talk of too much talk recalls the goings on in a Trappist monastery - once a year's there's a general assembly allowing for the monks to vent in front of the abbot. "Any questions, comments?" solicits the abbot. A young novice pipes up with "the porridge at breakfast is a bit lumpy."

	A BETTER PERSON: Tiger Woods after missing a putt last week.
	Photo by: Reuters

"Yes," says the Abbot, "anything else?"

Silence.

A year passes, and the abbot returns to field questions. Another novice shyly puts up his hand. "The breakfast porridge is a little too smooth."

"Yes, anything else?"

Silence.

A year passes. This time when the Abbot calls for talk, there is only silence. Eventually, a wizened old monk musters from the back - "Can we please put a stop to all this infernal porridge talk?"

I've been twice threatened with followers getting off this couch if the column seeks again to understand the Federer phenomenon, and if we don't lay off Tiger Woods already! At the risk of losing some dedicated fellow couchers, here's broaching both.

A recent YouTube video set the Internet buzzing whether Federer's amazing shots are real. The video, purportedly in-between takes for a Gillette TV commercial, twice shows him knocking a can off a crew member's head with a tennis ball, ala William Tell.

"All we'll say is we leave the real or fake debate up to the viewers, but the evidence is there to see," said a Gillette spokesman.

It's early still at Flushing Meadows, but the five-time U.S. Open champ easily cleared his first hurdles. Against Argentina's Brian Dabul he drew special attention with his reaction after a spectacular crowd-thrilling through-the-legs winner.

The shot brought back memories of a similar, spectacular move against Novak Djokovic in last year's semi-final. "I thought I was a bit late," Federer told the New York crowd, "I had to give it one last push to get there and then I thought 'I think I can do this one again.' I've only hit a few of those in my life. To do it twice here on Center Court ... it's amazing to share this moment with you guys. Thanks for the ovation. I love it."

So he really is human - adulation is what he wants! It must be the budding journalist in him since there's no need, you know, ever to bribe a journalist - all it takes is praise and they're yours forever.

Beyond craving praise, what really seems to get to Roger is an opponent trying to rile him. Andy Murray has been getting the better of our hero lately; even Rafael Nadal would never be stupid enough to taunt Federer with the phrase, "he's lost a little bit," interpreted as a suggestion the Scot believes his time for glory has some.

Red rag to a bull is nothing compared to this - they could end up in the final together if the Scot bests Rafa, but there's no way Murray can beat the maestro after annoying him like that.

Roger has anyway been railing at any suggestion he's slipped. At Wimbledon, he certainly seemed a humbled god, a reduced champion, betraying unexpected fault lines. Despondent in defeat, he had difficulty hiding his inner torment. But Andy slipped into thinking that beating the Swiss master is no longer an impertinence.

Despite defeat in Canada last month at the hands of the Scot, Roger has recovered, his rhetoric as good as ever: "Nobody ever believed I would come back from what they called a huge decline [during 2008]," he said recently. "Then, I won two Slams, played two finals and won the Australian Open. Now again everything changes, you don't win the French or Wimbledon, and things are once more all bad ..."

Going into the U.S. Open, he revealed what he'd really like - apart from winning: Surprisingly, despite having won 20 of the last 23 Grand Slam titles between them, Federer and Nadal have never met in New York: "It would be great to play Rafa here. We have played in all the other majors but this one is missing. I hope we can do it this year, but if not we'll both be around a little longer."

Is he still grrrreat?

A question mark still hovers for some, but only Roger and Tiger Woods, among the great modern sportsmen, can survive slumps and still be regarded as dangerous. But is that still true of Tiger?

Woods continues to say at every opportunity that his main business is about "making himself a better person." Maybe what he should have tried was to make himself a better kid during his critical formative years. Ever since he appeared with a cute red cap and matching golf bag alongside Bob Hope on the Mike Douglas Show at the age of two, Tiger's really never known anything other than constant attention. He dominated junior golf, dominated amateur golf, and when he turned professional (September 1996 ) and was named Sports Illustrated's sportsman of the year, his dad Earl predicted, "Tiger will do more than any other man in history to change the course of humanity."

When pressed if that really meant more than Buddha, Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, EarlWoods answered, "Yes, because he has a larger forum than any of them."

With those kinds of demands on him, can a kid pressured to shoot under 50 (for nine holes ) before he's four, actually hope to succeed? Would you choose him as a "wild card" for the Ryder Cup? Tuesday is when Corey Pavin, the U.S. captain, will complete his team.

How can I leave out potentially the greatest golfer ever? But has he learned to be part of a team, the former Maccabiah champion must be asking himself. No easy choice, certainly.

Caster racing

Nor is another sporting decision that's actually harder to talk about, but which probably should be, at least glancingly. Caster Semenya, the South African teenager who took the last World Championships by storm but was sidelined for a year because of doubts about her gender, is back in action in the 800m. She was cleared by athletics authorities to compete in women's races and duly resumed her demolition of the rest of the field. Some argue the other runners should just accept an extraordinary athlete, and that going up against her is "a fact of life."

Others complain her dominance simply isn't fair. Here's Canadian Diane Cummings, who finished eighth behind the South African in Berlin recently: "It's frustrating to be running against someone who seems to be doing it effortlessly, probably the best female runner in our distance ever. She could easily soon break the world record (1:53 ). Unfortunately for Caster she's grown up in an environment that's complicated not just for her but for human science. Is she man, is she lady? What constitutes male, what constitutes female? From what I understand of hormone testing, even if she is a female, she's on the very fringe of the normal athlete female biological composition. So, from that perspective, most of us feel we're literally running against a man."

"It's obviously a human rights issue, but human rights affect everyone in the race, not just one person," Britain's Jemma Simpson told the Daily Telegraph. "No way is it a personal issue, but it's a debate about what's right and fair for everyone. It's a really tough subject and no-one really knows the outcome. She's just been allowed to come back on the scene and we're expected just to get on with it. It's fair to an extent, but I think we all just want a fair level playing field out there."

More reactions came when Caster finished only third in a subsequent race. Jenny Meadows, another Briton, refused to join the chorus. Instead she insisted, "We're British and we should keep our cards close to our chest. We support Caster as a person; she's been through a great ordeal."

A heart-wrenching dilemma for which the only possible conclusion seems to be that since life isn't fair, who should it be less unfair to - to Caster, clearly a person born to run, though it's not clear on which track, or to the other women prepared to battle their guts out only to be outrun by someone no amount of training can prepare them for?

What I definitely won't talk about is the sordid Pakistani cricket bribery scandal!

Contrary to popular belief, what made cricket hugely popular in its early days as the English national sport, is not "stolid English character," nor the penchant for "fair play," but gambling. Still, some things are beyond the pale. And we certainly don't want to get into to a mindset when we continually have to ask ourselves whether any game is worth watching or getting excited about, for fear that lurking behind what's happening on the pitch are unwholesome shenanigans with a Mumbai, Singapore or Hong Kong bookmaker bowling us a googly.