[joshvince]

I find it fascinating that we're in an era where there are more elite sportspeople playing deep into their thirties or fourties across many sports that historically saw shorter careers. Ronaldo and Messi in football, Federer and Williams in tennis, Anderson in Cricket, Brady too.

Is this simply a coincidence? Or maybe they're the elite vanguard of a wave of people who experienced most/all of their career during the age of sports science? I wonder if this will be more and more commonplace: if you have that level of talent and discipline, you can stay at that level for longer.

[evgen]

While Brady is definitely an anomaly in American football there is a similar group in tennis that I have been watching with fascination for a while now. When I was young tennis stars were shooting stars that lit up the court for a few years and then retired. Connors, Borg, Lendl, McEnroe, Sampras, Agassi: all were at the top for 3-5 years and then stumbled a few times before retiring.

Federer, Djokovic, and Nadal have collectively dominated mens tennis together for more than 15 years. There is an entire generation of mens tennis players who never reached the upper tier of the sport because these three were so dominant that their only real competition was each other. Also-rans of this era like Murray, Roddick would probably have had their own run at the top in previous decades but just never had a shot against that dominating threesome.

[olddustytrail]

Andy Murray was twice Olympic champion, won 3 Grand Slams and was World No 1 for 41 weeks. His hip injury meant he didn't have the longevity of the others but he was hardly an "also-ran".

[strikelaserclaw]

I have a theory that these guys started training and competing before the era of smart phones (which i think leads to issues with attention span and confidence) but they also came at a time when sports medicine / sports technology was booming.

[aaaaaaaaata]

It's not NOT the blood doping.