Since the 2001 Wimbledon event, the Grand Slam tournaments have seeded the Top 32 ranked players in the singles events. Prior to that there were only 16 seeds in the Grand Slams, which used to ensure that the seeded players did not player each other until the 4th round. OnCourt Advantage details who the 2013 Australian Open men’s seeds are and why, what country they represent plus a full list of the 32 seeds.
The 2013 Australian Open will feature more men’s tennis than anything else because all of the men battle it out in the best-of-5 sets format. The rest of the tournaments throughout the year on the ATP Tour use the best-of-3 sets format.
In a 128-player sized draw there are 32 seeded players in order to keep the one seed for each four spots in the draw ratio according to tournament draw rules.
All of the 32 seeds are placed in preselected positions in the 128-player draw to guarantee that all of the seeds cannot meet another seed until the 3rd round. Therefore, the seeded players have the advantage of only playing against players in their first two rounds that are lower ranked players and outside the 32 highest ranked players in the draw.
The Top 8 countries that have the most seeded players in the men’s singles draw share 20 of the 32 seeds. These countries are Spain with 4, France and Germany have 3 each, whilst Czech Republic, Serbia, Switzerland, Argentina and USA all have 2 seeded players each.
The 12 remaining seeded players are the only representative from their country, these countries are: Great Britain, Canada, Croatia, Ukraine, Japan, Italy, Russia, Poland, Austria, Slovakia, Cyprus and Brazil.
World No.35 Julien BENNETEAU will be the first player to become a seed should one of the current seeds be unable to play in the Australian Open because he was the highest ranked player who was NOT seeded originally. After Benneteau the next player in line to become seeded is Kevin ANDERSON followed by Jeremy CHARDY.
The 32 seeds are the highest 32 ranked players in order from 1 to 32 according to the latest ATP men’s rankings available (7 January 2013), prior to the main draw being conducted who are fit to compete. The main draw singles ceremony will be held on Friday 11th of January. Thus far, Rafael Nadal and Mardy Fish are the only two players ranked high enough to be seeded but are out injured.
The first 16 players names in the list of seeds below are bolded because according to seeding they are seeded to be the 16 players who win through to the round of 16. The first eight players have both their first name and surname bolded to highlight the eight players seeded to make the quarter finals.
- NOVAK DJOKOVIC Serbia
- ROGER FEDERER Switzerland
- ANDY MURRAY Great Britain
- DAVID FERRER Spain
- TOMAS BERDYCH Czech Republic
- JUAN MARTIN DEL POTRO Argentina
- JO-WILFRIED TSONGA France
- JANKO TIPSAREVIC Serbia (pictured above)
- Richard GASQUET France
- Nicolas ALMAGRO Spain
- Juan MONACO Argentina
- John ISNER USA
- Marin CILIC Croatia
- Milos RAONIC Canada
- Gilles SIMON France
- Stanislas WAWRINKA Switzerland
- Kei NISHIKORI Japan
- Philipp KOHLSCHREIBER Germany
- Alexandr DOLGOPOLOV Ukraine
- Tommy HAAS Germany
- Sam QUERREY USA
- Andreas SEPPI Italy
- Fernando VERDASCO Spain
- Mikhail YOUZHNY Russia
- Jerzy JANOWICZ Poland
- Florian MAYER Germany
- Jurgen MELZER Austria
- Martin KLIZAN Slovakia
- Marcos BAGHDATIS Cyprus
- Thomaz BELLUCCI Brazil
- Radek STEPANEK Czech Republic
- Marcel GRANOLLERS France
© photo credit: Richard van loon
