Defending champion Rafael Nadal and women’s world number one Caroline Wozniacki were named top seeds for next week’s Wimbledon Championships here Wednesday. Tournament officials mirrored the current world rankings for their top five seeds in the mens and women’s singles, with Nadal ahead of Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Sweden’s Robin Soderling. In the women’s draw Wozniacki heads the list from Belgium’s Kim Clijsters, world number three Vera Zvonareva, newly crowned French Open champion Li Na from China and Victoria Azarenka from Belarus. Defending women’s champion Serena Williams, who made her comeback at Eastbourne this week after almost a year out of tennis, has been seeded eighth, meaning she will not face a top-eight player until the quarter-finals.
Williams is bidding to clinch a hat-trick of Wimbledon crowns after a hellish 12 months beset by serious health problems and a foot injury. Men’s seedings 1. Rafael Nadal, 2. Novak Djokovic, 3. Roger Federer, 4. Andy Murray, 5. Robin Soderling, 6. Tomas Berdych, 7. David Ferrer, 8. Andy Roddick, 9. Gael Monfils, 10. Mardy Fish, 11. Jurgen Melzer, 12. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, 13. Viktor Troicki, 14. Stanislas Wawrinka, 15. Gilles Simon, 16. Nicolas Almagro, 17. Richard Gasquet, 18. Mikhail Youzhny, 19. Michael Llodra, 20. Florian Mayer, 21. Fernando Verdasco, 22. Alexandr Dolgoplov, 23. Janko Tipsarevic, 24. Juan Martin Del Potro, 25. Juan Ignacio Chela, 26. Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, 27. Marin Cilic, 28. David Nalbandian, 29. Nikolay Davydenko, 30. Thomaz Bellucci, 31. Milos Raonic, 32. Marcos Baghdatis
Women’s seedings 1. Caroline Wozniacki, 2. Kim Clijsters, 3. Vera Zvonareva, 4. Li Na, 5. Victoria Azarenka, 6. Maria Sharapova, 7. Francesca Schiavone, 8. Serena Williams, 9. Petra Kvitova, 10. Marion Bartoli, 11. Samantha Stosur, 12. Andrea Petkovic, 13. Svetlana Kuznetsova, 14. Agnieszka Radwanska, 15. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, 16. Jelena Jankovic, 17. Julia Goerges, 18. Kaia Kanepi, 19. Ana Ivanovic, 20. Yanina Wickmayer, 21. Peng Shuai, 22. Flavia Pennetta, 23. Shahar Peer, 24. Venus Williams, 25. Dominika Cibulkova, 26. Daniela Hantuchova, 27. Maria Kirilenko, 28. Jarmila Gajdosova, 29. Ekaterina Makarova, 30. Roberta Vinci, 31. Bethanie Mattek-Sands, 32. Lucie Safarova.
