SEEING as the monopoly of the top five male players has been broken just once in the past six years and the Australian Open has been their domain since 2005, it would take a brave man to bet on an outsider breaking through in the next fortnight.

However, Marin Cilic managed it at the US Open a couple of years ago and I believe Milos Raonic has improved his game sufficiently to break the stranglehold exerted by Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Roger Federer, Stan Wawrinka and Rafael Nadal in the tournaments that count. He’s got the firepower to worry all of these guys.

Raonic will be 26 later this year and first made his presence felt at the Australian Open in 2011. Last year he was a quarter-finalist, beaten by the eventual champion Djokovic, and back then I wouldn’t have argued too much about the widespread perception of him. Although he had a big serve and hit the ball very hard, he didn’t have too much else to his game and was always picking up one kind of injury or another.

That has changed. I spent time with him at the recent exhibition event in Abu Dhabi talking about what was needed to break through against the top guys. Then I watched a lot of his matches at the Brisbane International and saw him beat Federer to win the title a week ago. Federer wasn’t 100% fit because of a virus but he was well enough to get to the final and Raonic outplayed him.

I sensed a determination from Raonic to make himself better and you have to respect that in a top-flight sportsman. He could make a comfortable life bludgeoning his way to victory with a barrage of aces and he would have won his share of titles in the smaller events, simply because of the strength of his serve.

But that was not good enough for Milos. He wants to win Grand Slam titles, craves a place near the top of the game and is prepared to do what it takes. He’s even been watching some of my instructional videos because he wanted to work on his volleying.

I’m not taking any credit and I don’t even know if it’s a factor but the big change for me in the first few weeks of this year is an improvement in his game at the net. He’s big, 6ft 5in tall with long arms and a massive wing-span. With the strength of his serve, it would be criminal not to back it up with an attacking volley and I see a marked advancement in that department.

He is also moving a lot better, which is good to see after his problems last year. He missed the French Open after foot surgery that was intended to kill a nerve that was causing all kinds of problems. Then he missed the last couple of months of 2015 after a series of back spasms and was intent on putting that issue to rest.

The big Canadian is very intelligent — his father has a PhD in engineering and his mother is a nuclear physicist. Talking to him in Brisbane, he said he is fascinated by mathematics and understands the power he is capable of.

His game is not pretty and some might say he is the epitome of the downside of men’s tennis in that he wins by simply outhitting the guy across the net. Put him against a player of a similar ilk, such as Cilic, Kevin Anderson or Nick Kyrgios, and the result will be a surfeit of aces, hardly any rallies and not too much entertainment. That didn’t stop Pete Sampras being revered as one of the greatest players of all time.

Do I expect any great change in the order of merit at the top of the men’s game this year? The answer would have to be no and it is going to take a superhuman effort from somebody to prevent Djokovic from winning a sixth Australian Open title.

I see Murray going a very long way in the tournament once more and only an idiot would write off Federer after he reached the finals at Wimbledon, the US Open and the ATP World Tour Finals.

Wawrinka is also a contender after winning in 2014 but as for Nadal, we will have to wait and see. I can honestly say that I have never seen anybody play with as much intensity in an exhibition match as I saw from Nadal in Abu Dhabi.

So here we go for another Grand Slam year with the big shots of men’s tennis looking very solid at the top of the game. It will take some shots with real velocity to break that dominance and if anyone possesses sufficient power, then it’s Milos Raonic.

Unique format and team camaraderie make the Davis Cup tennis’s greatest treasure

THE ultimate experience for anyone who seriously swings a tennis racket is to win Wimbledon or any of the other three Grand Slam titles. Of course it is. But to some of us who appear rather old-fashioned in this day and age, there is something special about representing your country, combining with your mates and striving to be the best team in the world.

For me, that is why the Davis Cup is one of the biggest treasures in tennis. It brings a unique atmosphere of camaraderie in a sport that is otherwise very selfish.

Repeatedly Davis Cup produces some of the most exciting action anyone could hope for on a tennis court. Call me a traditionalist, but bar a few minor tweaks, it should not be changed.

Maybe I’m biased. Twice I hit the ball that won my country the Davis Cup and I did it in front of an ecstatic crowd in my own back yard, on the grass of Kooyong in Melbourne a mile or two from where I grew up. I could not choose between those two victories in 1983 and 1986 and winning Wimbledon in 1987. The achievement was that fulfilling.

I am dismayed by the growing number of the game’s elite players turning their backs on playing for the country. No, I would even go stronger than that — it saddens and upsets me. And I would like to see something done about it. Fining somebody who wins $20m in one year is not going to hurt him but how about docking ranking points for a player who avoids Davis Cup duty? World No 1 Novak Djokovic purports to be a proud Serbian who loves his country. Yet in the past two years, he has played just one tie in the Davis Cup. Roger Federer had been an habitual absentee for Switzerland and what did he do after finally completing his list of tennis accomplishments by winning it a year ago? He immediately made himself unavailable for this year’s first round.

Life has not been particularly easy for Rafael Nadal in the past couple of years but he’s another who has turned away from playing for Spain because of internal political reasons rather than that he’s simply been injured. All these great players have expe-rienced the elation of winning the Davis Cup, and I just don’t understand how they can almost immediately leave their country in the lurch by saying they haven’t got time to play.

Hats off to Andy Murray this year — he’s given Britain his all. Believe me, playing three best-of-fivesets matches in three days takes a massive physical toll and requires more recovery than a normal tournament.

But he’s made it common knowledge he’s unlikely to be so committed next year when he’s got an Olympic gold medal to defend along with the new experience of fatherhood to contend with.

The Davis Cup is run by the International Tennis Federation and I’m afraid that ruling body is out of touch with the top stars of the game. Finally there’s a former player, American Katrina Adams, on the board, but for too long it was the domain of suits and blazers who had no idea. With a new president, Dave Haggerty, there is the potential for a closer link with the ATP World Tour and the players. But I’m not holding my breath.

I would not argue with the Davis Cup being held over in Olympic years because players are representing their country in a different way. I’d even listen to plans to stage it every other year and maybe hold something akin to a Tennis World Cup in one designated setting to fill the gaps. However I believe that playing in the Davis Cup for your country, with your mates shouting you on from the bench, can turn a young talented rookie player into a man. It was the case for me, at the age of 17 against Great Britain in Adelaide, and John McEnroe wasn’t much older in the 1978 Davis Cup final.

The Davis Cup is a tennis treasure and like any valuable antiquity, it should be preserved.

It’s make-or-break for the Australian when he takes on Andy Murray in singles today

THE problem with losing semi-finals in the Davis Cup, just like any other sporting competition, is that nobody remembers you or your team. So as an Australian who fears the worst in Glasgow today, I’d implore Bernard Tomic to take note of the effort being put in by Andy Murray across the net and try to emulate his effort not just today but in his future tennis career.

You have to admire Murray’s dedication to duty. He desperately wants his British team to succeed, and to play in every minute possible to ensure success.

Yet now the massive weight of responsibility falls upon the 22-year-old shoulders of Tomic, and I wonder if he is up to the task. He dodged a bullet against Dan Evans in Friday’s singles and can just be thankful the match didn’t go into a fifth set, because he was physically spent.

After a day to rest and recuperate, Tomic must get out there again and prove to me that he has the fight and application to match his talent.

From where I was sitting, a simple case of nerves drained him of what energy he had and, as we saw with Serena Williams in the US Open, that can be debilitating. A big lumbering guy such as Bernie can ill afford to have lead weights in his shoes due to nerves.

The Davis Cup does that to you. It’s a bigger test than anything you find on the main ATP World Tour because you are not just playing for yourself. You are carrying the hopes of your mates and your country, and you know that adds up to a lot of people. Though Bernie has a good Davis Cup record, he has registered plenty of his wins against lesser players.

Murray is several classes above Tomic and, I’m afraid to say, Bernie will have a serious wake-up call today. I’ve known him since he was 12 years old and came to the academy that I was running in Hope Island, Queensland. His talent was never in any question — his ball control was very special even back then. The problem was he wasn’t interested in putting in the physical work, the hard yards as we call them in Australia.

Even at such a young age, a player has to show physical application to the task of being a real competitor. Unfortunately, Bernie’s ever-imposing father had a master plan which didn’t involve his son being with the other kids. Bernie had the belief instilled in him that he was too good to either spend time with his peers or do the hard work.

He never wanted to participate in the drilling with the kids of his age. Because he knew that he was better than them, he was more interested in playing sets against coaches who were more than twice his age. I saw enormous potential but also danger signals that in years to come he would rely purely on his talent.

To be a top tennis player you need the full toolkit: skill, near-perfect technique on all strokes, mental toughness, and physical toughness. It is clear Bernie has most of the attributes needed but there’s serious work to do to consistently make him a top contender.

The British captain, Leon Smith, has been clever in taking full advantage of his prerogative of selecting a slow-paced surface, putting plenty of sand in the paint for the top coat on the court to best help Andy Murray’s game. And he’s chosen the heavier Wimbledon ball, which again favours his man.

I’ve gone into a few decisive third days of big Davis Cup ties in my time and to my way of thinking, they were what the sport is all about. Murray has played Tomic twice before on the ATP World Tour and the results both times were pretty emphatic, a 6-3 6-1 win for the Scot in Miami two years ago and a 6-3 6-2 victory in the Brisbane semi-finals a year earlier.

Tomic’s supporters could put forward a reasonable argument that Bernie was a relative youngster then but he isn’t anymore. He’s at a stage where he has to take responsibility, and the day-to-day standards of Murray’s effort is required. I think I know what the outcome will be today and, as an Australian, I’m afraid I fear the worst.

Most forceful talent in women’s game faces uncertain future

Upsets happen and t he unpredictability of sport is the quality that ensures it will always remain entertaining. However, from the start of Serena Williams’ attempt to complete the calendar Grand Slam at the US Open, it always appeared to be a perilous quest. Now her dreams of creating history have been shattered so alarmingly, where does she go from here? She’s already confirmed as this year’s world No 1 and she’s done that four times. All that’s left is statistics such as winning one more major to equal Steffi Graf’s haul of 22, or getting closer to Margaret Court’s 24. I’m not sure any of the top performers play just to better a number.

Can she rebound to win another major title after failing to beat Roberta Vinci, a player she’d never lost to before? Is she sufficiently motivated to maintain the brutal training regime necessary to stay at the top at the age of 34 and with lots of disposable income? Is tennis that important to her after winning pretty everything the sport has to offer? These are questions she must ask herself in the weeks ahead and the most important thing is for her to get away from the sport, store away the rackets, go on an extended holiday, and work out her priorities. During that break, she might decide there are other things she wants to do.

I wouldn’t be surprised if she does not hit another competitive ball until the WTA Finals close the year in Singapore. And then what? Will she contend for another clean sweep next year? I doubt it. Is the lure of an Olympic gold medal or two in Rio de Janeiro something that will keep her going? Well, it’s a possibility, but it will take some sacrifices and I wonder whether Serena is sufficiently in love with the game.

Two weeks ago, I wrote of her complex personality, the way she worried about her public perception, and the fact that success does not come easy to her. I said then that the only player capable of consistently beating Serena is herself. I stand by everything I said.

Serena is not universally popular. At the start of this US Open, I was at my tennis academy on the Caribbean island of St Vincent and watching her play her first match on a big outdoor TV screen. The support for her was immense, but I’ve also been in VIP areas at some of the sport’s most prestigious tournaments and there has been jubilation when she’s lost. She knows that and she’s told me it hurts. In a perfect ‘Serena World’, she would be as collectively loved as Roger Federer, Chris Evert or Steffi Graf, but that’s never going to happen because of some of the tantrums she’s had on court such as verbally abusing the line judge or that blow up with the umpire at US Opens in recent years.

So she creates a self-defence mechanism and, after her defeat by Vinci, I heard her insist that she never felt any pressure. She has a funny way of showing it because, in those last few games against Vinci, she bore all the hallmarks of somebody struggling with the inner demons telling her she wasn’t good enough. You could see it in her body language and the way she struggled to move properly on court.

This was Arthur Ashe stadium in New York, where she had dominated with three successive titles and where she produced some of her greatest performance. It’s the court where she won her first major title at 17. Probably her most secure spot in the tennis world and yet she disintegrated with alarming effect against a player she crushed a couple of weeks ago on a similar surface in Toronto.

Many people believed it was a foregone conclusion that Serena would complete the set of major titles this year, but I wasn’t so sure. Not that I didn’t believe in her ability, because she’s the most forceful woman ever to have hit a tennis ball. But her inner anxieties were always going to be multiplied in times of extreme stress.

It’s been said many times that being beaten in a semifinal is much tougher than going out in the early rounds and to come so close to achieving something special but falling short is agonising.

Williams didn’t hit a consistent level throughout the US Open and although she’s had a superb year in the majors, she’s been lucky to get out of some tight situations. However, she lost to Roberta Vinci because she created her own pressure. How much longer does she want to live with that burden? Take a break Serena and decide what you really want to do over the next few years.

WHOEVER becomes the US Open champion next weekend, and however they play, they will view their rackets in the same way that a great artist viewed his paintbrush or Jimi Hendrix regarded his favourite guitar.

Playing at the highest level, you don’t just pick up a new racket and think it’s going to immediately improve your game. Getting to know your weapon, experimenting with the weight by adding or taking away little chunks of lead, working out the right string tension, it takes months, even years, to get it right.

Racket technology has improved enormously since I was a young kid back in Australia and although I knew better about Santa Claus, I wrote him a letter saying that what I really wanted for Christmas was a Spalding Davis Cup. I can’t explain my disappointment when I opened the wrapping paper and there instead was a Slazenger Ken Rosewall, although I later found out this was simply because Muscles was my father’s favourite player. Looking back on my career, I paid the price for swapping my racket too often simply because I was chasing the money and always looking for the most lucrative contract. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but the guys who really got it right were those prepared to stick with what they knew, even if their deal expired.

Even the great Pete Sampras, who pretty much played with the same brand throughout his career, went through a period when his management company could not strike a deal with the manufacturer. So he simply painted the frames jet black, so any form of logo was invisible, and got on with what he did best, which was winning titles. Of course players tinker and make slight adjustments. Even the fastidious Roger Federer decided in 2013 that he needed to jump-charge his game to keep pace with younger challengers such as Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray.

For his entire career Federer had long been using the smallest racket head of anyone on tour, an old-school 90-square-inch Wilson Pro Staff. But success at the top level is all about fractions and he knew he needed something extra so moved to something larger. Of course it wasn’t that straightforward and took months to get things absolutely right, but now look at him and you will see he is serving better than he’s probably ever done and playing with astonishing control, volleying well and stepping right in to take returns so early.

People rightly maintain Nadal is one of the strongest and most talented men ever to dominate on the court, but his racket and its strings are so important to his game. The amount of topspin he puts on the ball would have been unthinkable in the days of wooden rackets.

Bjorn Borg was the player who first brought this quality to the game and it’s what made him stand out as something special, but he was locked into playing with a racket that became overtaken by the technology at the time.

Then there was the steel racket that only Jimmy Connors could use in the 1980s. I’ve heard it likened to an electric guitar in an acoustic age but it’s frankly one that myself and a lot of my contemporaries tried and struggled to strike a chord.

Now 30 years on, racket technology has continued. We’ve been through those oversized-head rackets, which I liked and offered a lot more control at the net. Now there are even rackets that come with microchips, which are supposed to show the relative power of shots and amount of spin imparted. This is by and large a gimmick for the time being but soon we could see nanotechnology stiffening or adding flexibility instantly to a frame, correcting any miscontact. I’m convinced that in the next five or 10 years this march of technology is going to continue and rackets are going to become increasingly powerful. If this is going to be the case, the International Tennis Federation, being the rule-makers of the game, should do something to halt the advance. Things are in danger of becoming too forceful and specific skills, particularly the art of volleying, could become obsolete.