Andy Murray is now finding out what the likes of Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt discovered long ago - that it is bloody tough being around in the same era as Roger Federer.
In most other eras the prodigiously-talented 22-year-old Scotsman would have won his first Grand Slam title by now, just as Roddick and Hewitt would have captured more, while the likes of Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin Del Potro could also have added more majors had they not been unfortunate enough to be playing at the same time as the greatest player in the history of the game.
Federer's straight-sets win over Murray in Sunday night's Australian Open final means Murray still holds the unwanted title of best player yet to win a Grand Slam tournament.
And even more depressing for British sports fans - for whom sporting heartbreak is a way of life - it's still 74 years since a British male won one of the four Grand Slam tournaments.
That's right, you have to go back to Fred Perry's wins in the 1936 Wimbledon and US Opens for the last time a British male held aloft one of the four majors.
The same year Queen Elizabeth's father George XI became King of England, following the abdication of his brother Edward VIII to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson.
World War II was still three years away and Gone With The Wind had only just been released as a book, with the epic film of the same name also still three years away.
And on the local front Collingwood had just won a sixth premiership in 10 years - so now we really know just how long it has been since a British male lifted a Grand Slam title.
But while Murray has now suffered two defeats in Grand Slam finals to Federer - he also lost the 2008 US Open final - he can at least console himself in the fact that given he is six years younger than the Swiss genius he might get his chance one day.
And while the likes of Hewitt, Roddick, Djokovic and Del Potro are entitled to wonder just how many majors they would have won in another era, those four can at least console themselves with the fact they all have at least one (with Hewitt the only one of those four to have won two).
But until Murray, who has all the tools to win a Grand Slam tournament unlike Britain's last great hope in the one-dimensional Tim Henman, joins that elite group there will always be a question mark hanging over his status as one of the world's top players.
As for Federer, well if there was any confirmation the Swiss genius is in a league of his own at the top of men's tennis this was it.
In becoming only the fifth man - and only the second after Andre Agassi since the tournament moved to hard court at Melbourne Park in 1988 - to win four Australian Opens, Federer has now won 16 Grand Slam singles titles.
He is now two clear of former record holder Pete Sampras, whom he surpassed last year when he won his sixth Wimbledon to go with five US Opens and his drought-breaking 2009 French Open victory as he finally conquered the rich, red clay of Roland Garros.
There is simply nothing left for Federer