A month ago, Milos Raonic was the 152nd-ranked tennis player in the world, a kid with a huge serve and huge potential, but a hothead held back by his on-court demeanour.

Saturday, even before he stepped on the court and defeated American Mardy Fish 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 in their ATP Tour semifinal in Memphis, Raonic would have likely become the No. 45 player in the world when the new rankings are issued on Monday.

With the victory, he'll jump to about No. 37. If he wins the tournament, he would be within a couple of huge serves of the top 30.

The 20-year-old from Thornhill, Ont., is tennis's next big thing — not just back at home in Canada, but around the tennis universe.

The "boom" you hear isn't just the sound of the 147-m.p.h. bombs coming off his racket. It's the sound of his career exploding into the stratosphere.

All of a sudden, you hear, "can't miss top-10," or "definitely a Grand Slam winner," or "future No. 1."

It's all rather over the top, and it's an awful lot to live up to, but it's the result of 12 years of hard work, of millions of forehands and backhands and serves, of early-morning and late-night sessions with just his father Dusan and a ball machine for company.

It's the culmination of those monotonous footwork drills and nagging injuries, the high school parties missed, the disappointments and roadblocks and life-defining decisions.

"I used to look him in the eye, across the net when he was 13 or 14 and tell him, 'I believe this: You're going to make it. You're going to play these (top) guys. So you have to take this seriously,' " said Casey Curtis, who coached Raonic from age eight until he left for a three-year-stint at the national training centre in Montreal.

Back then, Raonic was like a clumsy, newborn colt — long-legged, a little shaky on his pins, yet to grow into his now six-foot-five frame.

One junior contemporary, Gastao Elias, said this week that Raonic lost to "everybody" back then, because he was just so unco-ordinated.

Despite that, Elias added, everyone also thought he'd be good. Very good.

Curtis doesn't remember it quite that way.

"I think the best guys beat him, but usually when Milos lost, the guy won the tournament," he said. "He was very lanky and didn't have enough strength in his legs to cut, and support the movement required to play at that level.

"He's got that now."

Friend and frequent doubles partner Vasek Pospisil, a B.C. native who has beaten Raonic more often than he has lost to him on the minor-league circuit but whose breakthrough hasn't come quite as quickly, remembers that gangly kid.

"I definitely remember those days. He only really got rid of that when he joined the national centre, worked hard on footwork and co-ordination overall. He looks a lot more natural now and moves better on the court — and he has matured physically," Pospisil said. "But he always had the big serve. Even when he was 15 or 16, that's what everybody was talking about, even in juniors."

That serve.

Raonic is the ATP Tour leader in aces this season, and is in the top three in three other serving categories. He also has put up the fastest serve of the season so far.

"He's obviously blessed with fast-twitch (muscle) fibre, not just on the serve — but you have to coach it. He worked extremely hard on that serve over the years. He didn't walk in the door at eight years old with it," Curtis said. "Even at 12, it was basically, technically, almost a perfect motion.

"I said to him, 'You've got the best serve in the world, not the fastest.' "

Eight years later, he does.

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Tennis Canada high-performance chief Louis Borfiga saw something.

Hired in 2006 to turn Tennis Canada's development program into a world-class operation, in the mould of the successful structure in his native France, Borfiga was barely on the job when he saw a young Raonic playing in an under-18 event in Ste-Hyacinthe, Que.

"He was playing in the consolations and I said, 'He's good.' I talked with the coaches and they said, 'No, no,' but I kept him in my head and followed him," Borfiga said. "I just thought there was something."

Raonic soon joined the new national program out of the Jarry Park Tennis Centre in Montreal.

His junior career wasn't much to brag about. He reached a respectable No. 35 in the ITF rankings, a certain portion of that due to the fact that he played so many events.

There aren't many huge junior scalps on his resume. Raonic never even made it to a junior Grand Slam tournament until his final year of eligibility. In three events, he won only one match.

Raonic was headed to the University of Virginia on a tennis scholarship before Borfiga talked him out of it. Borfiga told him to give it two years.

The first big breakthrough on the pro came at the Rogers Cup in Montreal in 2009, when, at 18 and ranked barely inside the top 700, he upset two quality opponents in qualifying and came within one big forehand of upsetting top-10 player Fernando Gonzalez of Chile.

That match against Gonzalez on the No. 1 court at Jarry Park began just a few moments after the swan song of Quebecer Frederic Niemeyer, who had just closed out his pro career against the great Roger Federer on the stadium court.

A few months later, Raonic and Niemeyer joined forces.

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Niemeyer and Raonic travelled together much of 2010, the master tutoring the youngster about life on Tour, and about what he had to do to reach that level.

Raonic was growing up, filling out, getting a better handle on his movement and how best to use his weapons.

Always, there was that serve.

Raonic qualified on his first Grand Slam attempt, but lost in the first round to Carsten Ball at the U.S. Open last summer. Raonic then went to Asia, qualified for an ATP Tour event in Kuala Lumpur and made the quarter-finals. He qualified again in Tokyo and put up a credible performance in a 6-4, 6-4, second-round loss to world No. 1 Rafael Nadal.

By then, Niemeyer, who had just come off of years of globe-trotting, was clear he couldn't continue as a full-time travelling coach.

With all the stories written about Raonic the last few weeks, there have been many misconceptions. One is that he went to Spain and sought out current coach Galo Blanco on his own because he knew he needed to get stronger.

It was actually a Tennis Canada initiative — and the federation is footing the bill.

Blanco is under contract to Tennis Canada, and must submit Raonic's program to Borfiga and Davis Cup captain Martin Laurendeau before making any decisions.

Tennis Canada was familiar with Blanco, a former top-40 player and French Open quarter-finalist, from his work with Canadian teenager Steven Diez in Spain.

"I advised Milos to do a tryout with Galo," Borfiga said. "We really wanted a coach who would have continuity with (original national centre coach) Guillaume Marx and Fred, a sound person who worked hard and knew tennis, not a show-off. Galo was the coach I thought he needed."

The two-week trial in Asia in co-operation with Niemeyer, with whom Blanco gets along very well, was positive. Raonic, who injured his shoulder the following week at a Challenger event in Uzbekistan, headed to Spain for rehab then to train at Blanco's academy, where he saw plenty of practice time against some of the best Spanish players, as well as a lot of physical work with well-respected Spanish trainer Tony Estalella.

"(Estalella) and I agree that the off-season Milos had this winter in Barcelona was amazing. We never saw anything like that before, working the way he worked for six weeks," Blanco said during the Australian Open. "I think that if you work, and you have the level, these things will surely come."

Mostly, Blanco worked on the mental side, and despite a few relapses here and there, the remarkable cool under pressure that Raonic has displayed is the biggest reason his rise has been so quick.

Blanco said they were aiming for the top 100 by June, and hopefully to finish in the top 40 — maybe the top 30 — by season's end.

It's mid-February, and Raonic is already there.

Montreal Gazette

smyles@montrealgazette.com