Nick Kyrgios is the host nation’s best hope of winning the 2023 Australian Open.Credit:Getty Images
Daria Saville (54) also would have been in the field if not for theACL rupture she sustained playing against dual Melbourne Park champion Naomi Osaka in Tokyo in September.
Nick Kyrgios (22),Alex de Minaur (24),Chris O’Connell (78),Jordan Thompson (83) and Thanasi Kokkinakis (94) will be in the men’s main draw.
Jason Kubler (110) needs only a handful of withdrawals to join them,but high-profile trio Alexei Popyrin (122),John Millman (149) and James Duckworth (159) will require wildcards to avoid having to qualify.
Kubler would be comfortably inside the ranking cut-off if not for the ruling body’s decision not to award ranking points at Wimbledon,where hereached the last 16 in a career-best result.
That decision followed Wimbledon banning Russian and Belarusian players in protest of the invasion of Ukraine.
Duckworth,30,suffered the steepest fall,from a career-high No.46 after this year’s Australian Open,buthip surgery that sidelined him for three months played a role in that.