Not bad R1 draws at all those.

After that there is the potential interest of Kyle vs his old sparring partner Carreno Busta in R2 and Novak in R3 ! ( Novak has Verdasco, who he saved MPs against recently, in R1 ). Also Aljaz and Dan could in theory meet in R3 though have seeds Tomic and Cilic respectively likely in the way in R2 if they win their R1 matches.

The British 16ths of the draw :

1st 16th :
(1) Murray vs Marchenko (UKR)
Qualifier vs Lu Yen-hsun (TPE)
(WC) De Minaur (AUS) vs G Melzer (AUT)
(WC) Halys (FRA) vs (31) Querrey (USA)

8th 16th - ie bottom of the top half :
(27) Tomic (AUS) vs Bellucci (BRA)
Estrella Burgos (DOM) vs Bedene
Bagnis (ARG) vs Evans
Janowicz (POL) vs (7) Cilic (CRO)

16th 16th - ie the very bottom of the draw :
(30) Carreno Busta (ESP) vs Qualifier
Edmund vs Giraldo (COL)
(WC) Istomin (UZB) vs Qualifier
Verdasco (ESP) vs (2) Djokovic

Pretty great set of ties, I really feel we can go for 4 for 4 in the first round. Dan surely is good enough to take care of Bagnis on a hard court, Kyle should have too much for Giraldo, Aljaz could not have asked for a better draw and I think that Murray fella might sneak through too.

theemptyvessel wrote:

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Pretty great set of ties, I really feel we can go for 4 for 4 in the first round. Dan surely is good enough to take care of Bagnis on a hard court, Kyle should have too much for Giraldo, Aljaz could not have asked for a better draw and I think that Murray fella might sneak through too.

-- Edited by theemptyvessel on Friday 13th of January 2017 03:48:56 AM

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Yep. Those are the best set of draws we've seen for ages

Facundo has not won a match on anything but clay for well over a year. His last non clay victory was qualies at the US Open 2015.   Dan should be licking his lips at the prospect! I hope he is given sufficient rest - he'll be emotionally as well as physically tired. 

Murray's draw is about as good as gets apart from that QF. Nishikori's probably the one player other than Djokovic or Del Potro who can outlast Murray. They had some titanic matches (of varying quality) last year. That said, Murray was very poor in the latter two sets of their US Open tie. And one of the other possibilities is Federer, who Murray hasn't beaten since surgery. Hopefully Berdych can find a way through that section.

But then it's a Slam, so you're going to have to beat these guys anyway. Thiem and Monfils are definitely the preferable two opponents from that 5-8 group though. The latter 8 seeding placements are actually identical to the O2. And of course we all know who won there.

Those first round draws are fantastic.

-- Edited by TMH on Friday 13th of January 2017 02:03:46 PM

The AO draw is very uneven: some sections that are full of threats, and others (yes, Mr Djokovic, once again, we're looking at yours) that look (hopes for Mr Edmund aside) relatively empty. May be interesting to see how the qualifiers are placed: while everyone's making much of Federer facing two qualifiers in a row, they're forgetting that the FQR includes Jurgen Melzer, Julien Benneteau and Radek Stepanek. (Fun facts about qualifying: only 13 seeds left in it ... and of the 32 players, 8 are over 30 and 8 are under 21)