LET FEDERER JUST BE FEDERER.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

There's something wrong with this stampede to label Roger Federer the tennis equivalent of Tiger Woods, even if the comparison itself seems perfectly accurate, a lob that kicks up baseline chalk and stops pin-high.

Sports races these days to reduce every historical event, place and life to a verbal snapshot. To the ESPN Generation, the NFL was born when Alan Ameche scored in the 1958 championship game, Philadelphia is The Town That Booed Santa Claus, George Foreman won the heavyweight belt from somebody named Downgoes Frazier, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were bitter rivals or best friends (depending on which video clip is handy) and Willie Mays' whole career is contained in the film snippet of the Vic Wertz catch (you're considered a Mays scholar if you know the catch was less great than the throw).

This must have to do with the increasing crowding and pace of the sports media world. You're going to get some glib oversimplification in the competition among such engineering marvels as instant messaging, text messaging, satellite radio, cable television and Summer Sanders (whose ``Sports List'' TV show is No. 1 on the superficiality list).

Joe DiMaggio? Privacy-craving, 56-game-hitting Mr. Marilyn. Joe Louis? Beat German guy, was greeter at Caesars. Secretariat? Won Belmont like tremendous machine, therefore is greatest racehorse ever. And now you know all there is to know on those subjects.

It's Roger Federer's turn to be shrink-wrapped.

A week ago, the comment most likely to be heard from an American sports fan about Federer was, ``Where's he from, again?''

Then he closed in on the U.S. Open championship, and everybody decided he's Tiger in shorts.

People were writing it even before quarterfinal victim James Blake provided quotes for the stories, declaring Federer better at his game than Woods at his. Only a journalist with an iron will could resist the angle after Woods sat courtside for Federer's four-set victory over Andy Roddick in Sunday's final.

``The tennis comparisons don't work so well these days, so Roger Federer has joined the company of Tiger Woods,'' wrote Bruce Jenkins of the San Francisco Chronicle after the Blake match. If the observation had remained in the hands of columnists as sublime as Jenkins, it would be OK.

But it's everywhere, always sold with an air of originality: The Pottstown (Pa.) Mercury calls Federer's three consecutive U.S. Opens and nine major titles ``Woods-esque.'' The Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer notes that Federer ``is to men's tennis what Tiger Woods is to golf.'' The Record (of Hackensack, N.J.) recalls how Roddick ``was supposed to play Phil Mickelson to Roger Federer's Tiger Woods.'' The Pretoria (South Africa) News says, ``Roger Federer ``towers over tennis like Tiger Woods dominates golf.'' The New Zealand Herald says, ``As with Tiger Woods, we should relish watching Federer.'' USA Today's Ian O'Connor welcomes ``the appreciation of Tiger Woods' equal.'' The link already has been appropriated by non-sports writers, such as the one for The Guardian (in England) who suggests that ``like Tiger Woods in golf and Roger Federer in tennis, (`Da Vinci Code' author Dan) Brown made his rivals question the point of even trying to compete.''

Thank goodness for the writers who have gone a bit deeper than the two men's dominating numbers: Leo McKinstry in The Telegraph (England), saying, ``Despite their total dominance, Tiger Woods and Roger Federer show a modest self-discipline that would have impressed the most chivalrous medieval knight.'' Steve Simmons, Calgary Sun, saying, ``He is infinitely more human than Tiger Woods, more precise, more likable, more honest, less robotic, seemingly enjoying his place as a tennis player for the ages.'' And Tony Kornheiser, Washington Post, having the audacity to question the comparison by saying, ``(Even) in the majors, where all the great players compete, Federer only has to win seven matches and only has to beat the person in front of him. In golf, you have to beat everybody to win.''

It says here the comparison is right on target, as far as it goes.

The trouble is that it plays into the hands of people who don't want to go any further. It's too easy, too pat, too settled. This is just what the non-tennis fan needs. You say the Swiss dude is definitely the greatest tennis player of all time? Good, then we can switch back to the Bengals-Chiefs.

Equating Roger Federer to Tiger Woods isn't a backhanded compliment, it's a forehanded insult. An athlete of Federer's all-around refinement deserves better than to be defined in terms of another athlete.

Know who should be worried about this? Reggie Bush, who's a couple of 100-yard games away from being named The Next Barry Sanders, and LeBron James, who's going to be christened The New Michael Jordan any day now, and then have 15 years to live up to it.

Let giants be giants. Don't squeeze them into somebody else's mold.

Next: Stop calling Chong Wei Lee the Evgeni Plushenko of badminton.

heymodesti(AT_SIGN)aol.com

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CAPTION(S):

2 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- color) Roger Federer poses with his U.S. Open trophy and Tiger Woods.

Harry DiOrio/Getty Images

(2 -- color) Roger Federer of Switzerland's dominance in tennis has brought comparisons to Tiger Woods.

Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

Box:

BY THE NUMBERS

- Associated Press