The first person I'd give a seat at the table of relentlessly dominant athletes would be a woman from New South Wales who played a little tennis, some hockey and whose command of a third game approaches the fictional. Heather McKay is now 76 and collected 16 consecutive British Opens in squash from 1962 to 1977.

You may feel the urge to argue about the depth in women's sport, but restrain yourself and applaud. Of the 48 consecutive games she won in those finals, 11 were 9-0 and years ago she told Sports Illustrated: "If someone got five or six in a game, (Australian writers would) write that I was over the hill. They thought I was a machine."