Twenty Grand Slams and a better head-to-head history against Daniil Medvedev is all Rafael Nadal had going for him entering the Australian Open final.

Before you think those are adequate allies, he’s ten years older than his 25-year-old opponent, a whole five inches shorter, and has more miles on his now-fragile legs than most long-distance runners, at least more than the Russian.

And yet, five hours and 24 minutes later, Medvedev shrugged as incessantly as a confused child on the verge of tears. He wasn’t grieving the loss, he probably hasn’t yet gotten around to that, he was only shaken by what had happened.

“The advantages that accrue from experience and maturity are so great that if you can subtract physical decline from the equation, it makes sense that the best players are going to be 35 or 40,” says Sai Prasanna from A3 Performance - a training centre which caters to some of the best athletes in the country.

No one expected Nadal to give in or give up, and though he has only come from two sets down to win four times in his storied career (last of which happened in the fourth round of the 2007 Wimbledon against Mikhail Youzhny), it didn’t feel right to write him off.

Debjeet Basu, the guitarist with rock band Perfect Strangers India, says the opening of new venues is adding to the interest. “We have had two gigs a month since February,” he says.

The dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, fell 0.64 per cent to 104.84.

Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, declined 1.07 per cent to $119.87 per barrel.

On the domestic equity market front, the BSE Sensex ended 152.18 points or 0.29 per cent lower at 52,541.39, while the broader NSE Nifty shed 39.95 points or 0.25 per cent to 15,692.15.

This phenomenon isn’t isolated to the likes of Nadal in tennis. Roger Federer is 40, and though practically out for the count, he’s still raising hopes of a comeback. Novak Djokovic, at 34, looks like he has at least half a decade of top-draw tennis left in him. Serena Williams at 40 doesn’t look like she is done either, and by ‘not done’, it doesn’t mean participation, it means winning titles and remaining on top of the mountains climbed by few.