Today we’re going to discuss seeding in Grand Slam tennis tournaments. Is it fair to all concerned that Wimbledon officials have included Serena Williams, seven times the event’s champion but currently ranked 183rd in the world, among the 32 seeds? By contrast, had this year’s French Open visited an injustice upon Williams, who hadn’t competed in 16 months while on maternity leave, by refusing to seed her there?
In both cases, it should be noted, Williams was welcomed into the competition. (She withdrew from the French with an injury after winning three matches, two against seeded players.) An essay on the website The Undefeated by Michael Fletcher argued that failing to seed Williams again “would have punished sports fans, who want to see the biggest stars perform on the biggest stages.” Fletcher’s comparison was that Tiger Woods “is eligible to play the Masters and PGA Championships for life” in spite of a long absence from the golf tour because of a back injury, and that the same applies to former champs however far past their prime.
But withholding a seeding position is not the same as banning Williams from the biggest stages. The Women’s Tennis Association, in fact, allows women who miss time because of childbirth to enter events based on their pre-absence ranking—in Williams’ case, No. 1—just without a guarantee of seeding.
And while Williams complained at the French that she should have been afforded a spot among the seeds—that she should not be penalized for becoming pregnant—there hardly is full agreement among her peers. Mandy Minella, a 32-year-old pro from Luxembourg, told the New York Times that she expected to have to earn her seeding, which is based on world rankings, after giving birth last October.
And what exactly does seeding accomplish? Belgium’s Kim Clijsters was unseeded when she won the U.S. Open in 2009, 17 months after giving birth. She had been away from competition for almost three years, but was gladly accepted as a wild card based on her Open title four years earlier.
So, the point?
Theoretically, by seeding the top 32 players in a Grand Slam field of 128, tournament officials “protect” those with the highest ranking against having to face any other seeded player through the first two rounds. That not only is considered a reward for the best players but also a guarantee to spectators and TV executives that the big names will be around longer.
The flip side of that premise is that players good enough to be seeded 17 through 32 might prefer facing one of the top 16 early—when the pressure is on the more accomplished player—rather than in the third round or later, when the stars are rolling.
It was only in 2001 that the major tournaments doubled the number of seeds from 16 to 32. The late Bud Collins, who was the sport’s premier historian as a newspaper and television reporter, said he preferred the maximum of eight seeds in effect prior to 1971. “Why not have some first-round fun?” he reasoned, by putting the best players in immediate danger.
Collins furthermore was mystified by the primary source of women’s seeding, the WTA rankings computer, which he nicknamed “Medusa” after the female in Greek mythology with living venomous snakes in her hair.
But back to Serena Williams.
In 2006, when she was 24 years old and already had won seven of her open-era record 23 major tournament titles, Williams had been kept inactive by a chronic knee injury for so long that her ranking plummeted to No. 91 by the time she entered the U.S. Open. As a consequence, she was unseeded.
Her reaction then? “I don’t really feel like an unseeded player ‘cause I don’t think about it. Obviously, I am. But I just feel I am who I am and I’m out there to perform. I don’t know too many people that see ‘Serena Williams’ next to their name and they’re, like, ‘Yes!’”
No kidding. It’s not as if having an unseeded Williams disables opponents’ alarm systems. Surely that still applies.
So she’s seeded 25th and her Wimbledon draw is a kind one. After her first-round victory over the Netherlands’ Arantxa Rus, ranked 107th, she will face Bulgaria’s Viktoriya Tomova, No. 136. Then, either No. 57 Tatjana Maria of Germany or No. 62 Kritina Mladenovic of France.
Meanwhile, Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova, the 2014 Australian Open finalist who was bounced from No. 32 to unseeded when Williams got the 25th spot, must play No. 44 Alize Cornet of France, with the likelihood she next would have to deal with Johanna Konta, seeded 22nd and playing for her British home crowd, in the second round.
And Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanka, who inherited Cibulkova’s apparent No. 32 seed, has dispensed with No. 195 Elena-Gabriela Ruse of Romania and gets No. 66 Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic next.
“I don’t think it’s the right thing to do,” Cibulkova told BBC before the tournament. “I think it’s just not fair.”
Discuss.