Andy Murray avoided the worst in the draw for the Open 13 Provence as he has dodged any seeded players in the first round.
Murray will face world No 66 Tomas Machac in the first round in Marseille in what will be the first meeting between the players.
While Machac is 13 years his junior Murray should fancy his chances of powering past the Czech and into the second round.
Once in that second round a stiffer challenge will likely await with Murray or Machac bracketed to face the winner of the match between sixth seed Lorenzo Musetti and Fabian Maroszan.
Murray has never faced Musetti or Maroszan leaving that match fraught with uncertainty.
The winner of that clash might go on to face top seed Hubert Hurkacz in the last eight.
Hurkacz will get a bye through the first round and will take on the winner of the first round match between French Wildcard Benjamin Bonzi and Alexander Shevchenko who recently switched allegiance to Kazakhstan.
At the other end of the draw, Grigor Dimitrov is the second seed and after his first round bye he will face either Sebastian Korda or a qualifier.
Dimitrov is seeded to meet No 8 seed Jiri Lehecka in the quarter-finals however the Czech star will have to win an extra match to reach that stage.
Lehecka starts his campaign against a qualifier and if he gets beyond that test he will then take on either home hope Arthur Rinderknech or another qualifier in the second round.
In the second quarter of the top half of the draw, Ugo Humbert enjoys a bye into the second round where he will meet either wildcard Denis Shapovalov or a qualifier.
Humbert’s compatriots Gregoire Barrere and Luca van Assche are also in that quarter of the draw but they would have some task setting up an all-French quarter-final.
Barrere takes on Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, the No 5 seed from Spain, to start his tournament while van Assche has to get beyond Emile Ruusuvuori just to reach the last 16.
No 3 seed Karen Khachanov also gets a bye through to the last 16 where he will meet either Roberto Bautista Agut or Richard Gasquet.
The other seed in Khachanov’s quarter is Felix Auger-Aliassime who faces France’s Quentin Halys to start.
Zhizhen Zhang or Alexandre Muller will await the winner of the showdown between Auger-Aliassime and Halys in the last 16.
