Andy Murray headlines the Australian Open men's draw, but Novak Djokovic isn't going to sit quietly

Each year, tennis’ meandering through the season’s initial fortnight culminates in the grandeur of the Australian Open. As the first Slam of the tennis season, the Australian Open holds a distinct pride of place. It is also an important determinant in sifting through the players’ prospects for the rest of the year.

Quite a few surprising stories come out in each edition of the Australian Open set against the backdrop of the 128-player draw. And though the numbers do look exhaustive, the draw is however an invigorating detail to ruminate on.

Here’s then a detailed look at the 2017 Australian Open men’s singles draw:

Top-half

First Quarter:

Andy Murray’s name headlining the men’s draw is the first noticeable aspect of this year’s Australian Open. Though the Scotsman has played a couple of tournaments after having climbed to the zenith of the rankings, including in Doha in the opening week of this season, the Australian Open will be his first true test as the world No. 1.

Murray has reached the Australian Open final five times, the most across all the Grand Slams he has played, but has been thwarted every time. As the world’s best player taking on the rest of the field, expectations on the Briton to try and win the tournament this time around have thus piled up considerably.

Though the 30-year-old doesn’t have a difficult draw, he does have some tricky opponents standing in his path. Murray, who will open his tournament campaign against Ukraine’s Illya Marchenko on Monday, could have a third-round match against the 31st seed Sam Querrey. In the fourth round, Murray could potentially face the 16th-seeded Frenchman Lucas Pouille, against whom he has a 3-0 head-to-head. It will be interesting to see how Pouille, who had a breakthrough year in 2016, fares in the first big event of the new season, especially since he was laid low by a toe injury in his opening tournament in Brisbane, two weeks ago.

Fifth seed Kei Nishikori has been drawn to play Murray in the quarter-finals. However, even as the Japanese player deals with a hip injury that had cast doubts about his participation in the tournament, he also has a tough road to navigate through in the nature of his opponents.

Nishikori will play Sydney Open semi-finalist Andrey Kuznetsov in the first round and could meet the 26th seed Albert Ramos Vinolas in the third round. In the pre-quarter-final, he could play 17th seed and four-time former champion Roger Federer who, as compared to the Japanese, has a relatively easier lineup against qualifiers in his opening two rounds to ease him into the event. The Swiss, however, could face the unpredictable Tomas Berdych in the third round.

Second Quarter:

Australian Open 2014 champion Stan Wawrinka has been drawn in the second quarter. The fourth seed will open his bid for a second Australian Open title against Slovakia’s Martin Klizan. While the Swiss No. 1 could play 29th seed and Sydney Open semi-finalist Viktor Troicki in the third round, a potential pre-quarter-final against home favourite and 14th seed Nick Kyrgios will be an evaluation of his mettle.

The Australian didn’t play any ATP event before the first Slam, but chose to defend his Hopman Cup title (with Daria Gavrilova) to begin the year. Coming from a season where his attitudinal outbursts lingered in the news far longer than his memories, the Australian Open will provide an ideal setting for the 20-year-old to demonstrate how successful his working with a psychologist has been in tempering his behaviour.

Seventh seed Marin Cilic has been drawn as Wawrinka’s opponent in the quarter-final in the latter section of the top-half. The Croat, who will be playing Poland’s Jerzy Janowicz in the first round, didn’t have a good start to the new season, suffering a first-round upset at the hands of Jozef Kovalik in the Chennai Open, two weeks prior. Cilic could play 27th seeded Bernard Tomic, another temperamental Australian, in the third round before potentially meeting 12th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the fourth round.

Semi-final prediction: Andy Murray vs Nick Kyrgios

Bottom-half

Third Quarter:

The last two quarters of the draw are minefields, although they do promise a lot of excitement. In the third quarter, sixth seed Gael Monfils will open against Czech Republic’s Jiri Vesely. Of all the top-10 players, Monfils is the only one who hasn’t played any warm-up event before the Australian Open, making his chances in the Major quite difficult to assess. The 30-year-old Frenchman, however, did hit his stride last year, eventually reaching a career high of No. 6 in the ATP rankings. Though he is an obscure variable at this point, Monfils will be seeking to improve his performances and thereby his rankings, right from the get-go.

Rafael Nadal is the drawn player to take on Monfils in the round of 16. The 2009 Australian Open champion, seeded ninth this year, will play Germany’s Florian Mayer in the first round. The Mallorcan’s route gets progressively difficult, with a second round matchup against either Mikhail Youzhny or Marcos Baghdatis, followed by a likely third round against 24th seed Alexander Zverev.

Nadal, who played the Brisbane Open in the starting week of the new season, did well in his opening two rounds in the event before losing a tight three-setter to the third seed Milos Raonic. Incidentally, Milos Raonic, who is seeded third in the tournament, has also been drawn in the same quarter and could face Nadal in the quarter-finals, if the Spaniard reaches the last-eight.

Raonic will play Germany’s Dustin Brown in the first round and could meet the 25th seed Gilles Simon in the third round. A possible fourth-round encounter for the Canadian could be against either 2017 Chennai Open winner and 13th seed Roberto Bautista Agut. The Spaniard will play Argentina’s Guido Pella in the first round and could meet compatriot and 21st seed David Ferrer in the third round.

Fourth Quarter:

Eighth seed Dominic Thiem flags off the last quarter of this year’s Australian Open. The Austrian will play Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff in the first round and could meet 28th seed Feliciano Lopez in the third round. The Spaniard had strained his lower back earlier this week while playing in the Auckland Open and was forced to withdraw from the event before his quarter-final to give himself time to recover well for the first Major of the year.

This quarter also features the opening round game between 38-year-old Tommy Haas, who is rejoining the sport after being out for more than a year with injuries, and Benoit Paire. The winner between the two could go on to face Lopez, who will start against Italy’s Fabio Fognini, in the round of 64.

Eleventh seeded Belgian David Goffin and 20th seeded Croatian Ivo Karlovic could face each other in the third round. Goffin will open against a qualifier, while Karlovic will play Argentina’s Horacio Zeballos in the first round.

Winner of the 2017 Brisbane Open, Grigor Dimitrov, and six-time Australian Open titlist Novak Djokovic could play each other in the fourth round in the last section of the draw. Dimitrov looked to be going from strength-to-strength in Brisbane, where he defeated three top-10 players en route to the title. The Bulgarian will play Australian wild card Christopher O’Connell in the first round and could take on the 18th seed Richard Gasquet in the third round. Gasquet, who won the Hopman Cup this year partnering Kristina Mladenovic, will play against a qualifier in the first round.

Meanwhile, Novak Djokovic’s non-heralding of the Australian Open draw has made for a departure in the norm that was set for five consecutive years. The defending champion, seeded second in the event, will play Fernando Verdasco in the first round. It will be the second time this year that the two will be on the opposite sides of the net, after their epic showdown in the Doha Open semi-final, where Djokovic saved five match-points to get the win and reach the final that he went on to win against Murray. However, given that some of Verdasco’s best results have come at Melbourne Park, the Serbian cannot afford to take his rival lightly at any cost.

Provided there are no upsets greeting on Tuesday, Djokovic could go on to face another Spaniard, the 30th seed Pablo Carreno Busta, in the third round.

Semi-final prediction: Novak Djokovic vs Milos Raonic

Final prediction: Andy Murray vs Novak Djokovic

Champion prediction: Novak Djokovic