Greg Rusedski the latest to back Rafael Nadal’s gripe over Wimbledon seeding

Shahida Jacobs
June 27, 2019

Greg Rusedski has thrown his weight behind Rafael Nadal’s complaint about Wimbledon’s outdated seedings system.

Defending champion and world No 1 Novak Djokovic is the top seed at this year’s tournament, but world No 3 Roger Federer will be seeded second while current world No 2 Nadal will be seeded third with last year’s runner-up Kevin Anderson fourth.

The reason being Wimbledon uses a seeding formula that takes into account a player’s grass-court performances over the past 12 months.

Nadal voiced his unhappiness at the system, telling Movistar:” Wimbledon is the only tournament of the year that does it like this.

“Obviously it would be better to be two than three but if they think I have to be three I will accept three and fight to win the matches I have to win.”

Djokovic sided with Nadal and admitted he was “surprised” by the rankings, saying: “They do it differently to everyone else and you have to respect that, although it is a little bit surprising.”

And now former British No 1 Rusedski admits Nadal can feel hard done by.

“I kind of understand Nadal’s point when he said you know, yes you can put at his last seven years, but he has earned his ranking and he has won the title,” he told Metro.co.uk in an interview.

“I don’t think it’s as relevant as it used to be, it’s not a specialised surface like it used to be. Everybody plays. You earn your rankings for 12 months a year. If there was disparity like there was in the 90s when I was playing, agreed, because clay was slow, grass was fast, indoors was fast, hard courts were medium – everything is medium slow.

“Grass, apart from the serve where it still slides through a bit… on the rallies it’s slow, it’s slower than clay. So I kind of feel Rafa went out the year before last to [Gilles] Muller it was only because the guy played an incredible match, that’s what you’re going to have to do.

“He deserves his seeding. I kind of understand Nadal’s argument and I kind of believe it, because if you’re going to do a ranking by surface why don’t we do it all?

“For clay? So Rafael Nadal should be seeded No 1 every time at Roland Garros. Roger then probably No 1 on grass because of his record at Wimbledon and then on hard courts, Djokovic is always No 1. So, unless you’re going to change the whole system completely and utterly, then I think he has a fair point that grass isn’t a specialised surface anymore.”

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