World no.1 Rafa Nadal will battle the bad boy of Australian tennis Bernard Tomic and a partisan crowd in the first round at Melbourne Park as he bids for a 14th grand slam title.

The Spaniard dumped a teenaged Tomic from the 2011 tournament but will be wary of the former Wimbledon quarter-finalist who raises his game in front of home fans and has returned to form by making the finals in this week’s Sydney International warm-up.

The local hope’s horror draw with Nadal drew groans and rueful laughs from Australian media and fans, with ashen-faced tournament director Craig Tiley saying he thought he was going to “fall through a hole” in his chair.

However, Nadal’s run to the quarter-finals is also littered with landmines, a potential third-round match against 25th seeded Gael Monfils followed by a likely round four meeting with 16th seed Kei Nishikori among them.

Fifth seed and 2009 US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro, the only player to break the “Big Four’s” stranglehold over the grand slams in recent years, looms as a quarter-final opponent.

Second seed Djokovic has been drawn in the much kinder lower half of the draw and will face Slovakia’s 90th-ranked Lukas Lacko first up.

Wimbledon champion Andy Murray has been given no favours, drawn in the same quarter as 17-times grand slam champion Roger Federer.

The Briton will play 112th-ranked Japanese Go Soeda in the first round but big-serving American John Isner, seeded 13th, shapes as fourth round clash ahead of a quarter-final blockbuster with Federer.

The women’s draw elicited further groans for local fans, with no.1 Serena Williams drawing rising Australian talent Ashleigh Barty in the first round.

Williams’s draw lines her up for a potentially challenging fourth-round clash with Australia’s Sam Stosur.

Double defending champion Victoria Azarenka, seeded second, will take on Swede Johanna Larsson with the prospect of a fourth round match against rising American Sloane Stephens.