TIPPING POINT:THE Australian Open, tennis's first grand-slam of 2012, began during the night. You probably missed it. Or maybe you didn't, depending on your vintage. Nocturnal toilet breaks tend to increase the older you get so maybe you caught some of Melbourne on the telly in passing, so to speak; something to look forward to there, kids. Mind you, age can be a relative thing.

Maria Sharapova said last week that when she surveys her Aussie Open opposition she feels like a “grandma”. Sharapova is 24.

Another big question for the fortnight ahead is can Roger Federer become the first man since Andre Agassi almost a decade ago to win a Slam past 30 years of age? Now that’s depressing – Federer as veteran.

There are 30-year-olds out there who were born in 1982. How dispiriting is that? In 1982 this corner was doing the Inter Cert. The Inter doesn’t even exist anymore, that’s how fossilised I am. It brings to mind the old gag about how young you can be before being able to die of old age? Timing can be a bitch. But timing, like age, can be relative thing too.

Reaching what passes for maturity in the 1980s meant coming into the world in the mid to late sixties. There have been worse times to be born. 1920 can’t have been great, given there was a good chance you might find yourself running away from a panzer by the time you hit 20. And of course location counts too. Being a young buck in Hanoi around 1968 can’t have been much fun.

But for you pretty young things out there staring into the depths of our current national depression, there is always the consolation that life hasn’t dealt you nowhere near as bad a hand as being young in 1980s Ireland did.

There wasn’t a bean in the country, certainly not one that would deliver any kind of decent latte: emigration was almost obligatory and came minus Skype: Charlie Haughey preached financial prudence: Leave It To Mrs O’Brien constituted entertainment: And the music was so deadly earnest U2 were almost trendy. How scary is that?

But we were young. Anything was possible – at least for that crucial short period when decrepitude was so far over the horizon it didn’t even figure on the radar. My old man used to peddle the line: “If you haven’t done it by 25, then you’re never going to do it.” The line could vary, but never the age-scale. That is until the heir to his overdraft reached 25 in possession of a full mullet thatch and little else.

The sermon morphed into: “If you haven’t done it by 30 . . .” Then there was a brief bout of “35”. Now he doesn’t say anything.

Of course by then everything had changed. It was Tiger time, when, if you believe the myth, we all spent our time buying flats in Bulgaria while hovering up cocaine from the pert behinds of Ukrainian hookers that were paying their way through college.

The more mundane reality for the majority of the 1980s generation involved paying extortionate prices for plasterboard gaffs in the arse-end of nowhere. And now we’re facing the long-term prospect of seeing our own progeny heading for the plane. And that, folks, is truly crap generational timing.

But the point of all this – yes, there is one – is that however you fight it, there still remains just that brief, golden gap of opportunity where it really can happen. That applies to most anything, but perhaps sport most of all.

There is a fad right now which suggests sporting prowess can be extended, that careers can be lengthened through the years by medical advance and dietary denial in a marvel of longevity to rival Methuselah.

Ryan Giggs’s career is an aspiration now, not a freakish exception. AC Milan’s record for keeping football geriatrics on the road is pointed to as systematic evidence of how athletes can last longer. Even our own Brian O’Driscoll gets a reverent nod when it comes to stretching out a sporting life. And there is something to it. Maybe not as much as the advocates believe, but there’s no doubt some athletes last longer than they used to.

It can’t be coincidence, though, that tennis continues to buck that trend. That Federer is able to compete at the very top level at 30 is regarded as a marvel of a sport where Rafa Nadal is being widely written off as past it at 25, a physical wreck worn out by eight grand-slam-winning years in which he has poured his heart and soul into the pursuit of getting one last ball back over the net.

That’s the thing with tennis, the element that makes it such pure, raw, thrilling sport. There’s no hiding out there. Away from the corporate, wristwatch advertising, oh-so-bourgeois, polo-shirt bling, it’s simply two people facing each other over a net: boxing without the blood.

Think back to those classic Federer-Nadal matches over the years, or Djokovic and Nadal in last year’s US Open final, or Federer and Djokovic in last year’s French Open semi. Go even further back to the days of Borg and McEnroe. Those matches were decided by minutiae of the game, skids and bad bounces that swung the initiative one way or another, but only after each player had left every physical and mental asset they had, and sometimes even some they hadn’t, out there.

There’s only so often anyone can do that. It’s a reality the body can only do so much. The mind too: then the slide inexorably begins. Slight percentages drop off. Team games allow the slide to be disguised. A role can be adapted, or changed that still allows a player compete at the very top level. Doubt that and ponder why Arsene Wenger has turned to Thierry Henry.

Manchester United can’t doubt it. If ever a squad of players should feel the sting of professional rejection, it is Man U’s after Alex Ferguson’s run to Paul Scholes. Physically, he’s a long way from what he was. But mentally Ferguson knows Scholes has a fortitude the youngsters lack. There’s a chance Scholes will get away with it for half a season. The glory of tennis, though, is that when it really counts, there’s no getting away with anything. You can’t hide: every vulnerability is exposed.

For the next two weeks in Australia, some of the greatest players the world has ever seen will again lay everything they have on the line. Federer and Nadal have pulled it off many times over. It’s their great achievement. They have delivered when it counted, dredged up the last grain of mental and physical resolve and made the most of when their minds and bodies peaked. That their timing coincided is our blessing.

The fascination of Flinders Park will be if they can do it again. Nadal looks knackered. He’s even getting a little catty about his great rival. Federer has thrown away winning chances in the last couple of years, indicating a mental fragility that simply didn’t exist in his pomp, and which currently exists alongside back trouble.

The slide signs are starting to show. It’s reassuring in a way, proof of an all too human frailty that makes those achievements all the more remarkable. Watching their raging will be worth getting up for – again.