The seedings for Wimbledon used to be determined using a system that included players’ recent success there and at other competitions held on grass courts.
The 20-year-old Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz took Novak Djokovic’s spot as the top player in the ATP rankings on Monday, guaranteeing him the top seed at Wimbledon.
Alcaraz, the current U.S. Open champion, recently won his first career grass-court championship after defeating Alex De Minaur in the final at Queen’s Club in London on Sunday. This victory helped him move up one spot from No. 2 in the world rankings.
Djokovic, who won a men’s record 23rd Grand Slam championship at the French Open this month, dropped one spot after opting not to participate in any ‘tune-up’ events on grass before Wimbledon.
The number of times the top spot has changed in 2023 is six, which is the most since it happened seven times in 2018.
On July 3, Wimbledon’s matches will begin.
The men’s and women’s seeds will be revealed by the All England Club on Wednesday, and it is anticipated that they will simply follow the ATP and WTA rankings for those 32 spots in each 128-player singles draw. Alcaraz and the principal actress, Iga Swiatek, would then be in the first row of each bracket.
On Monday, a little over two weeks after capturing the French Open for the third time, Swiatek stayed at No. 1 as she has for every week since moving up to that rank in April 2022. Aryna Sabalenka, the Australian Open champion, retained her position at No. 2, and Elena Rybakina, the Wimbledon champion in the previous year, is at No. 3. Caroline Garcia, who was ranked No. 5, switched places with Jessica Pegula, who rose to No. 4.
The seedings for Wimbledon used to be determined using a system that included players’ recent success there and at other competitions held on grass courts. The ATP and WTA, however, made the unusual decision to withhold all ranking points that would have been earned at Wimbledon in 2022 in protest of the club’s decision to ban players from Russia and Belarus due to the invasion of Ukraine, making even last year’s results at the All England Club irrelevant.
