Today, Wimbledon announced the seeds for the men and women. Wimbledon has traditionally picked seeds based on its own formula, favoring players that have played well historically and tweaking based on recent performance.
They did so again. Here are the seeds:
1 Rafael Nadal (ESP)
2 Roger Federer (SUI)
3 Andy Murray (GBR)
4 Novak Djokovic (SRB)
5 Juan Martin del Potro (ARG)
6 Andy Roddick (USA)
7 Fernando Verdasco (ESP)
8 Gilles Simon (FRA)
9 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (FRA)
10 Fernando Gonzalez (CHI)
11 Marin Cilic (CRO)
12 Nikolay Davydenko (RUS)
13 Robin Soderling (SWE)
14 Gael Monfils (FRA)
15 Marat Safin (RUS)
16 Tommy Robredo (ESP)
17 David Ferrer (ESP)
18 James Blake (USA)
19 Rainer Schuettler (GER)
20 Stanislas Wawrinka (SUI)
21 Tomas Berdych (CZE)
22 Feliciano Lopez (ESP)
23 Ivo Karlovic (CRO)
24 Radek Stepanek (CZE)
25 Dmitry Tursunov (RUS)
26 Jurgen Melzer (AUT)
27 Philipp Kohlschreiber (GER)
28 Mardy Fish (USA)
29 Igor Andreev (RUS)
30 Viktor Troicki (SRB)
31 Victor Hanescu (ROU)
32 Albert Montanes (ESP)
Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the seeding is Rainer Scheuttler. He made the semifinals last year. He is ranked 30, but seeded 19th. Similarly, Ivo Karlovic is ranked 31, but seeded 23. Marat Safin is ranked 23, but seeded 15th. The surprise is Tommy Haas. Although he won Halle and is ranked 35, he is unseeded at Wimbledon. Probably a guy no one wants to play in the first round. Most of the seeding changes occur in the lower half of the seeds. The top seeds are most or less the rankings, perhaps adjusted one or two spots.
Two players that have historically done reasonably well, but are not playing Wimbledon are Richard Gasquet and David Nalbandian. Gasquet is facing charges of using illegal drugs. Nalbandian recently had hip surgery and is recovering from that.
The draw will come out Friday.
Nadal is scheduled to play two exhibition matches at Hurlingham Club. He is scheduled to play Lleyton Hewitt on Thursday and Stanislas Wawrinka on Friday. This bodes well for playing at Wimbledon.