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Today is the day where everyone finds out who they will be playing in the first round of the Australian Open next week.
Join The Roar as the Australian Open draw is conducted live from Melbourne Park at 10:30am AEDT. The draw, which will be done on the steps of the new Margaret Court arena, will set in stone the men’s and women’s field for 2015.
Joining the draw today will be Stan Wawrinka and Li Na, the champions of 2014, as they present the trophies and help the officials conduct the draw.
For those who are not familiar with how a draw is conducted, here is how it works.
INFORMATION:
Men’s
DRAW – 128 players (104 are direct entries, 16 are qualifiers and eight are wildcards)
SEEDS – 32 players
Women’s
DRAW – 129 players (108 are direct entries, 12 are qualifiers and eight are wildcards)
SEEDS – 32 players
The draw is completed in the following way. The seeds from 1-4 will be placed at number one, 33, 96 and 128 in the draw. one and two will be placed at the top and the bottom of the draw. Numbers two and three will be randomly picked and placed at 33 and 96.
Seeds 5-8 will then be placed at number 32, 64, 65 and 97 in the draw. All positions will be picked at random.
Seeds 9-16 will then be placed at number 16, 17, 48, 49, 80, 81, 112 and 113 in the draw. All positions will be picked at random.
Seeds 17-24 will then be placed at number nine 24, 41, 56, 73, 88, 105 and 120. All positions will be picked at random.
Seeds 25-32 will then be placed at number eight 25, 40, 57, 72, 89, 106, and 121. All positions will be picked at random.
After that is completed the remaining players – 76 for female and 72 for men – and qualifiers – 12 for female and 16 for men – will be put in the draw.
Qualifiers will be marked as ‘Qualifier’ until those who qualify are officially finalised. The computer, at random, will then place them in the draw to complete the 128 player field. That will determine who plays who in Round 1 of the event.
In the women’s draw, Serena Williams returns as the number one seed, after playing at the top seed for the first time since 2010 last year.
In the men’s field, Novak Djokovic replaced Rafael Nadal as the number one seed, after moving to the top of the rankings at Wimbledon last year.
Australia is well represented in the draw with eight women and 10 men. Nine of them received wildcards from Tennis Australia.
That could rise with Australians still in qualifying and some in contention for the final wildcard in the women’s draw. Regardless of whether more get in, or not get in, we will find out who the 18 play in the opening round today.
They will be hoping for a better draw than last year after seven drew seeds in the opening round in 2014. Two of them, Bernard Tomic and Ash Barty, drew the top seed in each draw.
Australia also has two seeds in the women’s draw with Sam Stosur (20) and Casey Dellacqua (29) part of the top 32 in the world.
This is the first time since 1989 that the home nation has had two seeds in the women’s draw for an Australian event. So who will everyone draw? And will an Australian draw a big player in the first round of the tournament?
Find out right here as The Roar covers the draw live today.
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