AUSTRALIAN OPEN
**Venue: **Melbourne Park ** Date: **18-31 January
Coverage: Every Andy Murray match live on BBC 1 or 2
Daily from 0830 GMT: live on BBC Red Button/website, 5 Live sports extra
Daily from 0000 GMT: text commentary on BBC Sport website
**Andy Murray will face a qualifier in the first round of the Australian Open but he has been placed in arguably the toughest half of the draw.**Defending champion Rafael Nadal and US Open winner Juan Martin del Potro could block the Briton’s path to the final.
Roger Federer is in the other side of the draw with Novak Djokovic and in-form Russian Nikolay Davydenko.
In the women’s draw, wildcard Justine Henin avoided a seed, but could face Kim Clijsters in the quarter-finals.
There will be no all-Williams final as Venus and Serena landed in the same half of the draw.
World number one Serena will face Urszula Radwanska of Poland in her opening match.
Britain’s two entrants Elena Baltacha and Katie O’Brien both drew opponents below them in the world rankings.
Baltacha will meet France’s Pauline Parmentier, while O’Brien was drawn against Austrian Patricia Mayr.
Henin, 27, is preparing to play her first Grand Slam tournament since the 2008 Australian Open after 20 months in retirement.
She will meet fellow Belgian Kirsten Flipkens in the first round, before a possible meeting with world number five Elena Dementieva.
While Henin was the name the top players were hoping to avoid in the women’s draw, all eyes were on Murray in the men’s.
He dropped from fourth to fifth in the world rankings before the seedings were announced, and that meant Federer, Nadal, Djokovic or Del Potro could face the 22-year-old Scot as early as the quarter-finals.
Friday’s draw means Murray may have to beat Nadal, Del Potro and Federer in successive matches to win his maiden Grand Slam title.
Nadal will open the defence of his title against Australian Peter Luczak, while Federer could face an early test against world number 36 Igor Andreev.
Davydenko, who has beaten Federer in their last two meetings, could lie in wait for the world number one in the quarter-finals.
Murray will discover his first-round opponent when qualifying ends on Sunday.
Djokovic, the 2008 champion, meets Spain’s Daniel Gimeno-Traver.
Fourth seed Del Potro, who withdrew from the Kooyong Classic on Thursday with a wrist injury, is due to meet 31-year-old American Michael Russell.
The Argentine is set to play at Melbourne Park despite the injury, according to Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley.
“He decided to take a couple of days’ break,” Tiley told Australian state radio. “He obviously wants to start 2010 well.”
Elsewhere in the women’s draw, last year’s beaten finalist Dinara Safina could meet fellow Russian Maria Sharapova in the fourth round.
Clijsters was drawn against a qualifier in the first round, but world number three Svetlana Kuznetsova looks likely to be her first test in the last 16.