Nadal, Wozniacki top Wimbledon seeds

Defending champion Rafael Nadal and women’s world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki were named top seeds for next week’s Wimbledon Championships here Wednesday.Tournament officials mirrored the current world rankings for their top five seeds in the men’s and women’s singles, with Nadal ahead of Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Sweden’s Robin Soderling.

In the women’s draw Wozniacki heads the list from world number three Vera Zvonareva, newly crowned French Open champion Li Na from China and Victoria Azarenka from Belarus.

The seeding list was altered Wednesday following the withdrawal of Belgian world number two Kim Clijsters, who had initially been seeded two. Clijsters pulled out after suffering a recurrence of an old ankle injury on Tuesday.

Defending women’s champion Serena Williams, who made her comeback at Eastbourne this week after almost a year out of tennis, has been seeded seventh.

Williams is bidding to clinch a hat-trick of Wimbledon crowns after a hellish 12 months beset by serious health problems and a foot injury.

Australian Sam Stosur has been seeded 10th while compatriot Jarmila Gajdosova is 27th.

Men’s seedings

1. Rafael Nadal, 2. Novak Djokovic, 3. Roger Federer, 4. Andy Murray, 5. Robin Soderling, 6. Tomas Berdych, 7. David Ferrer, 8. Andy Roddick, 9. Gael Monfils, 10. Mardy Fish, 11. Jurgen Melzer, 12. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, 13. Viktor Troicki, 14. Stanislas Wawrinka, 15. Gilles Simon, 16. Nicolas Almagro, 17. Richard Gasquet, 18. Mikhail Youzhny, 19. Michael Llodra, 20. Florian Mayer, 21. Fernando Verdasco, 22. Alexandr Dolgoplov, 23. Janko Tipsarevic, 24. Juan Martin Del Potro, 25. Juan Ignacio Chela, 26. Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, 27. Marin Cilic, 28. David Nalbandian, 29. Nikolay Davydenko, 30. Thomaz Bellucci, 31. Milos Raonic, 32. Marcos Baghdatis

Women’s seedings

1. Caroline Wozniacki, 2. Vera Zvonareva, 3. Li Na, 4. Victoria Azarenka, 5. Maria Sharapova, 6. Francesca Schiavone, 7. Serena Williams, 8. Petra Kvitova, 9. Marion Bartoli, 10. Samantha Stosur, 11. Andrea Petkovic, 12. Svetlana Kuznetsova, 13. Agnieszka Radwanska, 14. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, 15. Jelena Jankovic, 16. Julia Goerges, 17. Kaia Kanepi, 18. Ana Ivanovic, 19. Yanina Wickmayer, 20. Peng Shuai, 21. Flavia Pennetta, 22. Shahar Peer, 23. Venus Williams, 24. Dominika Cibulkova, 25. Daniela Hantuchova, 26. Maria Kirilenko, 27. Jarmila Gajdosova, 28. Ekaterina Makarova, 29. Roberta Vinci, 30. Bethanie Mattek-Sands, 31. Lucie Safarova, 32. Tsvetana Pironkova

Zvonareva ends Serena Williams’ comeback

Serena Williams was pleased with her performance at Eastbourne despite her comeback in the Wimbledon lead-up tournament lasting just two matches.

Williams was beaten by top seed Vera Zvonareva sending the American back to the practice courts.

The Russian’s 3-6 7-6 (7-5) 7-5 three-hour triumph was revenge for the Wimbledon final a year ago won by Williams, now ranked 26th after nearly a year out of the game.

Zvonareva now faces a quarter-final match-up against Australia’s Samantha Stosur, who powered past Serbian teenager Bojana Jovanovski 6-3 6-2 in just over an hour. “One or two points, I could have won the match,” Williams said. “I think that’s just me not playing and not actually even holding a racquet for over eight months and then finally picking one up and being able to do that.

“So it’s not overly disappointing.” Williams was appearing at Eastbourne for the first time after two operations on a foot she cut after last year’s Wimbledon followed by further surgery in February to remove blood clots from her lungs.