As the new tennis season kicks hits off at the Australian Open, a glance at the men's world rankings makes interesting reading (see http://www.atptennis.com/). The men’s top 20 is made up of players from 15countries with Spain leading the way with three representatives. And there are refreshing appearances for Marcos Baghdatis, a Cypriot, and Jarkko Nieminen, from Finland, who are higher up than any Aussie or Frenchman.

Europe dominates with 15 representatives led by Switzerland’s Roger Federer and this is perhaps the reason why European countries have won the last three Davis Cups. In fact, they have taken eight of the last 10, their hegemony disturbed only by Australia’s two wins in 1999 and 2003.

There has been no Davis Cup success for the U.S. recently, but they have two top-10 representatives in James Blake (5) and Andy Roddick (7). Roddick may be the one to push Federer in Melbourne after defeating him in the final of the warm-up exhibition event at Kooyong.

Sociologists will no doubt ascribe the geographic shift to cultural and economic reasons but it may be too soon to draw conclusions from these statistics. Look at Sweden, who won six Davis Cups between 1984 and 1998 and today have only two players in the top 50 with Robin Soderling at 23 and the veteran Jonas Bjorkman at 50.

Even more surprising is that just two years ago, South America had six players in the top 20 as compared to their current two, David Nalbandian of Argentina (8) and Chile’s Fernando Gonzalez (10). One thing that will draw no arguments is that since February 2004, when Federer took over the number one spot from Roddick, nobody has looked even remotely capable of knocking him off his perch.

The women’s top 20 (www.wtatour.com) shows 10 countries represented and they are all European, or close enough with Shahar Peer, at No.17, the geographical exception. Russia dominates with six players, but the days of the U.S. powerhouse of Lindsay Davenport and the Williams sisters are behind us with no apparent heirs in sight.