Marin Cilic's victory at the US Open extended European supremacy in men's tennis to 41 victories in the last 42 grand slams but that has not distracted from the growing impression that the era of the Big Four ended in 2014.

Since the all-Argentine French Open final which saw Gaston Gaudio beat Guillermo Coria in 2004, only Russia's Marat Safin, in Australia a few months later, and another Argentinian, Juan Martin Del Potro, had, prior to Stan Wawrinka's Australian Open win in January, interrupted a sequence that had seen Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, share every grand slam title, with Nadal and Murray also claiming Olympic gold during that period.

Perhaps even more remarkable is that since Nadal's French Open hegemony began in 2005, no grand slam final, prior to that between Cilic and Kei Nishikori in New York this week, had taken place without the involvement of any of that quartet while, since the first major meeting between Federer and Nadal in Paris in 2005, only six other men - Andy Roddick, Fernando Gonzalez, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Robin Soderling, Tomas Berdych and David Ferrer -had even reached finals.

Murray's status may be questioned by some who have described it as the era of the big three, but his contribution has been significant since he has been in six finals in all, twice as many as the next best since 2004, Roddick, who lost three Wimbledon finals while Robin Soderling was twice runner-up in Paris.

Perspective is meanwhile offered by past eras of apparent dominance.

Immediately prior to Federer's emergence, America had enjoyed a period of superiority, in particular during the '90s with Pete Sampras' defeat of Andre Agassi in the 1990 US Open final sparking a rivalry that would last more than a decade. Throw in Jim Courier's four titles and there were 21 American grand slam wins in the '90s, but a dozen others also shared that decade's big titles.

There was, too, the golden era of the mid-'70s to mid-'80s which began in 1974 when only Bjorn Borg's win at the French Open prevented Jimmy Connors claiming a single season grand slam and ended in 1984 when John McEnroe beat Connors in the Wimbledon final before claiming his last grand slam singles win a couple of months later in New York.

With Borg bowing out halfway through, though, no fewer than 13 others won grand slam singles titles while that trio were in their pomp.

Closest to being worthy of comparison with this past decade, then, is the great Australian era which reached its zenith in the '60s as that country continued to dominate the grand slams in spite of the absence for much of it of their greatest players, in particular Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall due to the split between the professional and amateur games.

Australian men claimed 32 of the 40 titles available between their own final in 1960 when Laver beat compatriot Neale Fraser and his last great victory when he beat yet another, Tony Roche, in the US Open final, but it took eight of them to bring that about while Spaniard Manuel Santana claimed four and four other non-Aussies also claimed titles.

What we have revelled in this past decade, then, has been unprecedented in the history of the sport but has now gone the way of all good things.

Age has clearly taken its toll on Federer who has claimed just a solitary grand slam success since 2010, infirmity has reduced Nadal's power to the extent that he could not defend his US Open title, while form has seen Murray drop out of the top 10 for the first time in six years. Djokovic is, of course, still world No.1 but even he has looked increasingly fallible lately.

They may yet share many more successes of course but Wawrinka started 2014 by suggesting that the Big Four will no longer have it all their own way and the latter stages of this US Open confirmed it with its low-key final only underlining how great the standards they set have been and how unlikely it is that we will ever see anything to compare with their decade of dominance.