We might only be two weeks into 2017 but that doesn’t mean we have to wait any longer for the first Grand Slam of the year. The Australian Open begins in Melbourne on Monday with the stars of the men’s game looking to seal the first big pot of the year.
Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer return to the fold in this tournament to try and usurp Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic and the new brigade are beginning to come through too and will hope to deliver a massive fortnight and land the title. All is set for a big tournament.
Recent Winners
2016 – Novak Djokovic
2015 – Novak Djokovic
2014 – Stan Wawrinka
2013 – Novak Djokovic
2012 – Novak Djokovic
2011 – Novak Djokovic
2010 – Roger Federer
2009 – Rafael Nadal
2008 – Novak Djokovic
2007 – Roger Federer
The Format
The 128 players in the draw have been assigned their positions in the draw bracket and the tournament is played as a straight knockout. Each match is over the best of five sets as per the normal Grand Slam rules. There is no fifth set tiebreak.
Top Quarter
Andy Murray heads into a Grand Slam as the world number one for the first time and he is the top seed in this tournament. His fellow top 16 seeds in this quarter are Lucas Pouille, Tomas Berdych and Kei Nishikori. The other seeds are Roger Federer, seeded as low as 17 for this event, Sam Querrey, John Isner and Albert Ramos-Vinolas.
Throughout the draw there are unseeded floaters who can cause a few issues. In this section they are Nicolas Mahut, Nicolas Almagro and Jeremy Chardy among others.
Second Quarter
This is where the US Open champion Stan Wawrinka is housed and where he’ll have to win a second Australian Open title from. The other top seeds in this quarter are Nick Kyrgios, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Marin Cilic. The other seeds are Jack Sock, Bernard Tomic, Pablo Cuevas and Viktor Troicki so Australian eyes will be all over this one.
There are a few spoilers in this quarter though. Steve Johnson was ranked in the top 32 for much of last year. He is in this section as is Andreas Seppi. Dan Evans made the final in Sydney last week and he could spoil a party or two in this quarter too.
Third Quarter
Milos Raonic is as high as number three in the world now and it is he who is the third seed and with it the highest seeded player in this quarter. Gael Monfils is the other top 10 seed while Rafael Nadal and Roberto Bautista Agut are also in the top 16. The other seeds are Philipp Kohlschreiber, Alexander Zverev, David Ferrer and Gilles Simon so this is an open quarter.
Jiri Vesely leads the unseeded dangers with American hotshot Frances Tiafoe also in this quarter. Borna Coric, Mikhail Youzhny, Marcos Baghdatis and Gilles Muller possess the talent to take care of some big names too.
Bottom Quarter
Defending champion Novak Djokovic is housed in this section of the draw. He is seeded two and the other top 16 seeds in this part of the draw are Dominic Thiem, David Goffin and Grigor Dimitrov who has already won a tournament this season. The other seeds in here are Feliciano Lopez, Ivo Karlovic, Richard Gasquet and Pablo Carreno Busta.
Benoit Paire, Fabio Fognini and Fernando Verdasco have all been ranked high enough to be seeded in previous Grand Slams and they will be looking to make their mark on this part of the draw as will Britain’s Kyle Edmund among others.
Betting
I’m going to take two players outright in the tournament this year. All eyes will be on Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic and rightly so but neither have the smoothest paths to the latter stages so if the draw opens up I’m hoping we can get some value.
I left the o2 in November thinking 2017 was the year Milos Raonic would win a Grand Slam and I’ll chance him first up. In an ideal world he would have been in Murray’s half of the draw rather than Djokovic’s but I look at his quarter and I don’t see an opponent to beat him. Once you get to the last eight of majors they take quite some winning but if you can go there fresh, especially in this where the heat is a major factor, it can be an advantage. I’ll go with the big hitting Canadian here.
I’m also going to take Kei Nishikori, a player who is knocking on the door of majors himself. He is in Andy Murray’s quarter but we saw him take Murray out in New York so that isn’t necessarily out of the question and Murray might need to win a quarter final against him to preserve his world number one ranking. Nishikori has been to a Grand Slam final before and he’s overpriced should something happen to Murray here.
In the bottom quarter all eyes will be on Novak Djokovic and while he looked excellent in Doha this will be his first Grand Slam with his new team behind him and if it gets tough at any stage you don’t know for sure he won’t revert back to the dodgy form of the latter half of 2016. If that is the case a Grigor Dimitrov with winning momentum behind him could take advantage of that. At 8/1 he offers a little value in the bottom quarter.
Tips
Back M.Raonic to win Australian Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 23.00 with Paddy Power (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back K.Nishikori to win Australian Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 41.00 with Betfair (1/3 1-2)
Back him here:
WON – Back G.Dimitrov to win 4th Quarter for a 2/10 stake at 9.00 with Ladbrokes
Back him here:
