You know the tennis season is well underway when the draw for the Australian Open is announced.

As the world’s best flock to Melbourne in search of the first Grand Slam title of the year, it’s time to draw some conclusions about who might be in contention to go all the way when it comes to winning this highly prestigious tournament, played in front of a very vocal and highly partisan Australian crowd.

It’s been a feature of the men’s game of late, and by that we mean the last decade, that the world’s best rock up to the four Slams…and then one of the Big 4 goes on to win it. Only three non-members of that elite club have won a Slam since 2009 with Swiss star Stan Wawrinka the only non-member to have won it more than once (he won three) in that period. Juan Martin del Potro and Marin Cilic the only others to have won at all.

And if you’re expecting a big outsider to come from nowhere and pick up a big trophy and an even bigger paycheck come late January, you’re likely to be disappointed. Of the four Slams, this is the one most likely to be won by one of the hot favourites. In fact, since 2006 the only player not called Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer to have won it is Wawrinka.

First things first: there will be no Andy Murray. The least successful member of the Big 4 continues to manage his workload carefully, suffered a pelvic injury last month and just felt it was too much of a risk to play a tournament this demanding. Shame, but probably the right call.

The odds have Nadal at around the 5.0 mark but he’s only ever won it once in 16 attempts and just hasn’t found the surface to his liking over the years. A semi-final place would be about par for the course though the one thing you can always bank on with him is that he’ll give it his all.

Federer, a five-time winner who won the 2017 and 2018 editions, can never be discounted. But time waits for no-one and at 38 this could finally be the year where he stops being a contender in Slams. That said, we’ve been saying that for a while now and he keeps on proving us all wrong. He’s around the 11.0 mark and if a couple of his early rivals suffer early shock defeats, that price will look very big indeed.

Splitting those two warhorses in the odds is Danii Medvedev. The bright young thing of men’s tennis made his first-ever Grand Slam final last year and is in the illustrious company alongside Ivan Lendl and Andre Agassi in making four consecutive finals during the US hardcourt swing, something he achieved during the 2019 season. He has the weapons to put in a strong challenge and odds of 9.0 will have its takers, but it may just be one Slam too soon for him.

Which of course leaves defending champ Novak Djokovic as the hot favourite. Available at the best price of 2.3, he’s won it seven times with the Melbourne Park surface and conditions being the ones that best suit his game from across the four Grand Slams. After a season where he won two Slams and made the semis in a third one, he looks truly back to his best. Whoever takes out the man they call ‘the Serbinator’, deserves to win it. But why not take a look at the full list of contenders on the men’s winner market?

Over in the women’s draw, the big news is that Serena Williams is back to winning ways after a three-year absence from the winner’s podium. She won the ASB Classic in New Zealand last week and duly donated all her prize money to the Australian bushfire relief efforts.

That’s of relevance to this tournament because only last week players in action at the Australian Open Qualifying rounds complained of the bushfire smoke affecting their ability to breathe on the court.

The bookies have wasted no time in sensing the Williams danger to their purse strings. They’ve chalked her up as the 5.0 favourite with local favourite Ashleigh Barty next best at 9.0.

The enigmatic Simona Halep, who often meanders between brilliance and erratic error-ridden tennis depending on her mood, is rated an 11.0 chance and if she’s up for it, can beat anyone on her day.

And if Barty is the victim of an early exit, the new crowd favourite could well be Naomi Osaka. Available at the same odds as Barty, the Japanese 22-year old added last year’s Australian Open to her 2018 US Open win. She’ll play Serena in the quarter-finals and it’s no exaggeration to say that the winner of that match- assuming they both make it that far- is the likeliest winner of the tournament.