‘Fab Four’ still dominating

EVERY Saturday the team talks about the big issues in sport locally, nationally and internationally.

January is always a huge sporting month in Australia and Jason, Sean and Glen will try to pick their way through some of the issues as they emerge from a festive-season break.

With tennis the hot topic as we prepare for next week’s Australian Open launch, we’ve put together a few thoughts on why we think Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Serena Williams are able to still be on top despite the longevity of their careers.

Jason Gibbs: I try not to get draw into any debate about who should be considered the greatest modern day tennis talent of all time.

Why? Because how you can settle on one name when the likes of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams are still dominating the scene.

Throw in Novak Djokovic and you’ve got yourself an argument that has at least four feasible winners.

I will say this though – the reason behind the dominance of these four stars is very simple – attitude.

Modern day sport science has a lot to do with the longevity of their careers but it is attitude that makes them winners.

All four of these athletes have the right attitude – they are committed mentally to doing exactly what needs to be done to win.

All the physical talent in the world – Nick Kyrgios – counts for nothing if you don’t have the right mental attitude and commitment.

Sean Teuma: Looking back on the careers of the Fed and Serena in particular, it leaves you in awe of how dominant they have been able to be over a long stretch of time.

One of the key things has been how they have been able to look after their bodies and haven’t really suffered careerdefining injuries.

Novak Djokovic had a whirlwind couple of seasons a few years back, where it was assumed he would take over the mantle from Federer as the best in the game.

However injuries unfortunately struck, and he just hasn’t been able to be the same player since.

In that time, Federer has climbed back up to the top of the game and added another few majors to his swag for good measure, and remained as one of the major drawcards in that time as well.

As much as I try to support and stick with Nick Kyrgios, despite the challenges he often presents himself, you would love to see someone of his talent have the same approach as a Federer, Williams or Nadal.

Let’s hope this changes over the course of the summer.

Glen McCullough: Is it a good or a bad thing the same faces hang around and dominate forever?

If you’re a big fan of the world tennis master class, and that’s the case for me with Roger, then you are in luck.

But at the same time I think people do get a bit sick of seeing the same faces pulling off the same results year after year.

It’s nothing personal, just annoyingly predictable.

Are they that good, or are the rest of them that bad and just roll up, happy to collect their appearance money.

I think there are numerous reasons why modern day athletes have such longevity. It’s called evolution.

We have simply developed better sport science, better strategies, better medicine — betting everything really while mindsets have also adapted with modern developments.

Once upon a time, not so many years ago, if you weren’t washed up by 30 years of age in whatever your chosen sport field was, you were expected to retire anyway because, well, you were 30 years of age.

At the same time 70 years of age was considered long in the tooth and was a number most people hoped to reach before signing off.

Forty years of age is definitely the new 30 so sit back and enjoy the Rafa, Roger and Serena show for a few more years to come.