Australian Open Men's Day 1 Tips: Norrie and Draper in action with Barrere the best bet

• Cameron Norrie leads British hopes

• Jack Draper with a shout at shocking Nadal

• Barrere the best bet on day one

Medvedev leads array of heavy favourites

Action begins in Melbourne at midnight UK time tonight, and there's so many big names and eagerly anticipated matches on the day one schedule.

Of course, there's the array of big names who are priced justifiably short to win their opener, and on Monday this includes the likes of Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Hubert Hurkacz, Denis Shapovalov, Jannik Sinner and Felix Auger-Aliassime, who are all around or below the 1.152/13 mark to progress to round two on Wednesday.

Norrie could be tested by improving van Assche

The British heavy favourite on Monday is Cameron Norrie, who is just 1.081/12 to get past the French wildcard Luca van Assche. The 18-year-old Frenchman lifted the 2021 French Open boys singles trophy, and has quickly worked his way into the top 150, so this could be no gimme for Norrie, even at such a short price.

Towards the end of the season, van Assche reached the Brest Challenger final indoors, before also losing in the Valencia final on clay. However, the week after, he did go one better and win his first Challenger event, picking up the title in Maia, also on clay.

At the moment, it would probably be fair to say that he's got more clay-court pedigree than other surfaces, but as a young player on an obviously steep upward curve, he could give Norrie a test, at least.

Draper capable of shocking Nadal

However, Norrie's countryman, Jack Draper, is the Brit which most people will be watching on day one, with the rapidly improving left-hander facing top seed and defending champion Rafa Nadal.

When I looked through the draw, this was one match which I had down as a potential upset, with Draper already showing a decent level this season in the warm-up events, and now breaking into the top 40.

Draper, now 21, already picked up two top 10 wins by the time he was 20, both on hard court, and he also pushed world number one Carlos Alcaraz hard in a three setter towards the end of last season.

He clearly is one to watch this year, and I'd not be surprised at all if he wasn't into the top 20 this time next year.

In his way tomorrow is Nadal, who of course, is one of the greatest players of all time. However, the Spaniard has now lost six of his last seven matches in an unheard of run of form, and there are now real conversations about his decline. Certainly, in recent times, his previously stellar return numbers have dropped badly.

This is such a tough match to price up, because Nadal's level could be anything.

I thought he'd be a bit shorter than the current 1.392/5, but the market has been fairly defensive on his chances. If Nadal had been shorter - perhaps judged more on reputation than recent form - a position on Draper would have been the spot for me.

Barrere to despatch clay-courter Etcheverry

For a value play, though, we have to delve deeper into the draw and find a match featuring two smaller names. I do like Gregoire Barrere as a 1.674/6 favourite against the Argentine clay-courter, Tomas Etcheverry.

It was Barrere who defeated van Assche in that Brest Challenger final indoors, and the Frenchman simply has much more experience and pedigree on hard courts, even at a lower level mostly on the Challenger Tour.

Etcheverry has a very mediocre record on the surface at main tour level in his career, with 31% of return points won being a real issue, and with this type of match-up, I'd much rather be onside with the player who has shown more surface ability.