These are the top 32 seeds for 2011 Wimbledon singles championships.

  1. Rafael Nadal
  2. Novak Djokovic
  3. Roger Federer
  4. Andy Murray
  5. Robin Söderling
  6. Tomáš Berdych
  7. David Ferrer
  8. Andy Roddick
  9. Gaël Monfils
  10. Mardy Fish
  11. Jürgen Melzer
  12. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga
  13. Viktor Troicki
  14. Stanislas Wawrinka
  15. Gilles Simon
  16. Nicolás Almagro
  17. Richard Gasquet
  18. Mikhail Youzhny
  19. Michaël Llodra
  20. Florian Mayer
  21. Fernando Verdasco
  22. Alexandr Dolgopolov
  23. Janko Tipsarević
  24. Juan Martín del Potro
  25. Juan Ignacio Chela
  26. Guillermo García-López
  27. Marin Čilić
  28. David Nalbandian
  29. Nikolay Davydenko
  30. Thomaz Bellucci
  31. Milos Raonic
  32. Marcos Baghdatis

Wimbledon likes to do its own seedings.  It decided to keep Nadal, Djokovic, Federer, Murray based on rankings.

The first shuffle comes in 8-10.  Andy Roddick is ranked 10, but seeded 8th.  Gael Monfils is ranked 8th, but seeded 9th.  Fish is ranked 9, but seeded 10th.

Tsonga is ranked 19th, but seeded 12th.

Troicki is ranked 12th, but seeded 13th.

Gilles Simon is seeded 15th and Almagro seeded 16th.  Their rankings are reversed.

Gasquet is ranked 13th but seeded 17th.

Youzhny is ranked 17th, but seeded 18th.

Michael Llodra is ranked 25th, but seeded 19th

Florian Mayer is ranked 18th, but seeded 20th.

Verdasco is ranked 23rd but seeded 21st.

Dolgopolov is ranked 21st, but seeded 22nd.

Tipsarevic is ranked 30th, but seeded 23rd.

del Potro is ranked 22nd, but seeded 24th.  (He’s never had a very good Wimbledon)

Chela is ranked 20th, but seeded 25th.

Garcia-Lopez is ranked 32, but seeded 26th.

David Nalbandian is ranked 24th, but seeded 28th.

Nikolay Davydenko is ranked 28th, but seeded 29th.

Thomaz Bellucci is ranked 29th, but seeded 30th.

Milos Raonic is ranked 26th, but seeded 31st.

Marcos Baghdatis is ranked 31st, but seeded 32nd.

It looks like the top 32 seeds are drawn from the top 32 players in the world.  Note that seeds 17-32 are basically equivalent (as are 8-16, 5-8, 3-4, and 1-2).  Although they juggle the seeds up or down in 17-32, it really doesn’t matter.  This is not like the NBA playoffs where the highest seed always meets the lowest seed each round.

The seeding algorithm runs like this.  The top 32 players in the world are the top 32 seeds.  Add 100% of points earned at grass court events in the last year.  Add 75% of points earned at grass events the year before.  Create a new “ranking” from this.  These are the seedings.  This is done automatically, so no committee is created to decide what to do.

One factor in this is there are only two weeks of grass events (plus Newport after Wimbledon).  Few of the very top seeds play the week before Wimbledon, so whoever plays and does well that week stands to get a decent bump up. Of course, Wimbledon points from the previous year and two years ago count to this as well, and play the greatest role in seedings.