Australian Open 2017 Draw Results: Full List of Seedings and Brackets

The 2017 tennis season kicks into high gear Monday with the start of the Australian Open, with Thursday's release of the men's and women's brackets being the first step on the two-week journey to immortality. 

Novak Djokovic and Angelique Kerber are the defending champions. Djokovic has lost just once at the Australian Open since 2011 in the quarterfinals against Stan Wawrinka three years ago. 

Kerber's victory was the first Grand Slam title of her career. She knocked off Serena Williams in a three-set final to kick-start her ascent to the No. 1 ranking last season.

Even though the brackets were only unveiled Thursday, the seedings have been known for some time since they follow the current ATP and WTA world rankings. 

Men	Seed	Women
Andy Murray	1	Angelique Kerber
Novak Djokovic	2	Serena Williams
Milos Raonic	3	Agnieszka Radwanska
Stan Wawrinka	4	Simona Halep
Kei Nishikori	5	Karolina Plískova
Marin Cilic	6	Dominika Cibulkova
Gael Monfils	7	Garbine Muguruza
Dominic Thiem	8	Svetlana Kuznetsova
Rafael Nadal	9	Johanna Konta
Tomas Berdych	10	Carla Suarez Navarro
David Goffin	11	Elina Svitolina
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga	12	Timea Bacsinszky
Roberto Bautista Agut	13	Venus Williams
Nick Kyrgios	14	Elena Vesnina
Grigor Dimitrov	15	Roberta Vinci
Lucas Pouille	16	Barbora Strycova
Roger Federer	17	Caroline Wozniacki
Richard Gasquet	18	Samantha Stosur
John Isner	19	Kiki Bertens
Ivo Karlovic	20	Zhang Shuai
David Ferrer	21	Caroline Garcia
Pablo Cuevas	22	Daria Gavrilova
Jack Sock	23	Daria Kasatkina
Alexander Zverev	24	Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
Gilles Simon	25	Tímea Babos
Bernard Tomic	26	Laura Siegemund
Albert Ramos-Vinolas	27	Irina-Camelia Begu
Feliciano Lopez	28	Alize Cornet
Viktor Troicki	29	Monica Puig
Pablo Carreno Busta	30	Ekaterina Makarova
Sam Querrey	31	Yulia Putintseva
Philipp Kohlschreiber	32	Anastasija Sevastova

Australian Open Brackets

Brackets for the men's draw and women's draw per AusOpen.com

Men's Top Storyline: Murray vs. Djokovic Part III?

Michel Euler/Associated Press

Djokovic vs. Andy Murray has been the familiar thread running through the men's bracket at the Australian Open lately. The top two seeds in 2017 have met in the finals of this tournament each of the previous two years, with Djokovic winning both times. 

The difference this year is Murray enters as the No. 1 seed in a Grand Slam for the first time in his career. He's coming off a brilliant 2016 season in which he reached his first French Open final and won his second Wimbledon title and second Olympic gold medal. 

ESPN.com's Johnette Howard noted Murray's brilliance extended beyond his performance in those two marquee summer events:

"

By the end of the year, when Murray held off Djokovic to win the ATP Tour Finals in London and maintain his year-end hold on No. 1, Murray had won 24 straight matches. Despite a three-set setback to Djokovic this past Saturday in the Qatar Open final, Murray still holds a 780-point lead in the rankings.

"

While Murray ended last year stronger, Djokovic defeated him in the Australian and French Open finals. He seemed poised for another dominant season, reigning above all the other men in the world as Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal struggled to keep up with the pack.

Djokovic already has the leg up on Murray in 2017 after defeating him in three sets at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open last week.

Per Leo Schlink of the Herald Sun, via Arunava Ray of the International Business Times (h/t Yahoo Sports UK), Djokovic said the French Open win last year took something out of him:

"

The fact I managed to win Roland Garros for the first time took a lot of me physically and emotionally as well. 

Sooner or later, I knew I would reach that stage where I had to stop and take a deep breath and redefine myself as a tennis player and in my life and to work out where I was heading next.

"

There is growing depth on the men's side, with Milos Raonic, Stan Wawrinka and Kei Nishikori all playing in at least one Grand Slam semifinal last year. Wawrinka is one victory at Wimbledon away from completing the career Grand Slam. 

Nadal needs to prove he is capable of staying healthy and can still play at an elite level. Federer is the biggest wild card coming off an injury-plagued 2016 in which he didn't win a singles title. 

With Federer coming off knee surgery at the age of 35, it's not a stretch to assume his best days are long gone. Hopefully, he's still able to make deep runs in Grand Slam tournaments to avoid stories about a legend just hanging around for the sake of hanging around. 

With Federer being drawn into Murray's quarter of the bracket, it won't take long to find out how far the former world No. 1 has come in his recovery from last year's problems. He did catch a potential break with a chance to face two qualifiers in his first two matches. 

Yet no two players on the men's side right now have shown anything to suggest the final will be anything but a third straight match between Murray and Djokovic. 

Women's Top Storyline: The Real No. 1 

Mark Baker/Associated Press

It's a testament to how dominant Serena Williams is that she had what was considered a down season in 2016, despite reaching three Grand Slam finals, winning Wimbledon and losing in the semifinals at the U.S. Open. 

The downside for Williams is she's set the bar so high, especially after 2015 when she was a U.S. Open title shy of pulling off the calendar-year Grand Slam, that anything less than a victory leads to multiple opinion pieces about where her mind and health are. 

Another unfortunate part of Williams being the most dominant tennis player of the last 15 years is Kerber's rise to world No. 1 flew under the radar.

Kerber defeated Williams in last year's Australian Open final and added the U.S. Open title to her mantel in September with a victory over Karolina Pliskova in the final.

Looking ahead to this year now that she is the No. 1 seed, Kerber told ESPN UK she isn't changing much that made her successful in 2016:

"

I have still the same team around me that I'm trusting. I'm starting good in Brisbane last year, I came here, I played a good match as well. I went to Melbourne with a lot of confidence, without expectation. I think this was the reason maybe why I played so well last year.

I always like to play a lot of matches, especially when we start the year. This was always my preparation for the big tournaments. I will not try to change this because that's the way I had my success. I'm here to play good tennis and have good confidence in Melbourne again.

"

Kerber and Williams didn't get off to good starts in 2017, with each losing in the second round at their season-opening tournaments earlier this month. It would be overreacting to read much into those performances, though, especially as it pertains to the Australian Open. 

Kerber got an unfavorable draw with No. 4 seed Simona Halep in her half of the draw, though Kerber did defeat Halep in their lone head-to-head meeting in a Grand Slam last year at the Wimbledon quarterfinals.

Williams got an interesting draw right out of the gate, as 19-year-old Belinda Bencic holds a victory over the world No. 2 player at the 2015 Rogers Cup. Bencic also made a run to the fourth round at this tournament last year. 

Kerber and Williams are the two best women's tennis players in the world right now. Kerber owns the actual ranking title at this moment, but a focused Williams is still going to be the favorite for a title in any event she enters. 

Yet this is also Williams at the age of 35. As great and well-conditioned as she is, eventually time gets the best of every athlete. It's been happening to Federer for years, culminating in his going under the knife in 2016. 

Williams isn't going to fall that far in one tournament, but for the first time in a long time, she has more to prove than her main competition does.