Alcaraz, Swiatek are the No. 1 seeds for Wimbledon

Men’s and women’s world No 1s Carlos Alcaraz and Iga Swiatek have been named as top seeds at The Championships 2023 after the seeding lists were announced on Wednesday.
Alcaraz, who returned to the No 1 ranking on Monday after winning his first grass court title at the Queen’s Club, is projected to meet seven-time champion and No 2 seed Novak Djokovic in the men’s final.
Swiatek, who recently claimed the third Roland Garros trophy of her career - and fourth Grand Slam overall - is at the opposite end of the draw to Wimbledon 2021 semi-finalist and No 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka.
In 2020 the All England Club took the decision to discontinue the use of a grass court seeding formula and that seedings would follow Tour rankings for both men’s and women’s singles draws.
Twenty-year-old Alcaraz will be playing at The Championships for only the third time; he reached the second round on his debut in 2021 and the fourth round 12 months ago.
Djokovic will attempt to equal Roger Federer’s Wimbledon record of eight men’s singles titles and hopes to extend his Grand Slam tally to 24 after winning the opening two of the year in Melbourne and Paris.
The 36-year-old Serb has a phenomenal record at Wimbledon. He has won the last four editions of The Championships and hasn’t lost a match in SW19 since retiring in his 2017 quarter-final against Tomas Berdych.
Former US Open champion Daniil Medvedev and Norway’s Casper Ruud, a recent runner-up at Roland-Garros, are the No 3 and No 4 seeds respectively.
Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, Denmark’s Holger Rune, Andrey Rublev and Italian Jannik Sinner will occupy seeding positions five to eight.
Dangerous floaters to look out for when the Draw is made on Friday include two-time champion Andy Murray, exciting young American Ben Shelton, 2021 runner-up Matteo Berrettini, three-time Grand Slam winner Stan Wawrinka, US Open 2020 champion Dominic Thiem and former Wimbledon finalist Milos Raonic.
Top seed in the ladies’ draw, Swiatek will hope to go further than her best effort at The Championships to date, a fourth round run in 2021.
The former winner of the Junior Championships begins her grass court season at a Tour event in Bad Homburg, Germany, this week.
The 2022 champion Elena Rybakina will be hoping to recover in time from a virus that forced her to withdraw from Eastbourne this week. If fit, the No 3 seed from Kazakhstan will look to defend her surprise Wimbledon title from 12 months ago.
Last year’s runner-up, Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur, has admitted that becoming Wimbledon champion is one of her major goals and the 28-year-old will start as the No 6 seed.
In-form seeded players in the ladies’ singles include Roland Garros 2017 champion Jelena Ostapenko, who reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon in 2018 and who won a grass court title in Birmingham at the weekend.
Croatia’s Donna Vekic has always looked at home on the lawns of Wimbledon and beat world No 3 Rybakina on her way to a Tour grass court final in Berlin last week.
She was beaten in the final there by Czech Petra Kvitova, another proven grass court performer, a two-time Wimbledon champion in 2011 and 2014, who collected her 31st singles trophy with that victory in Germany on Sunday.
Unseeded names to look out for in Friday’s Draw include five-time champion and wild card Venus Williams, Wimbledon 2019 semi-finalist Elina Svitolina, recent Nottingham champion Katie Boulter, and former US Open winners Bianca Andreescu and Sloane Stephens.
The draw for the ladies’ and gentlemen’s singles will be conducted tomorrow.