SERENA SEEDED AT 2018 WIMBLEDON DESPITE RANKING

Has there ever been a more dangerous No. 25 seed than a player who has won your Grand Slam seven times?
 

That’s one of many questions surrounding Serena Williams’ seeding at Wimbledon, which gets underway in southwest London on Monday.
 

The 23-time Grand Slam women’s singles champion is the lowest-ranked of the eight American seeds in London, but she is undoubtedly the one most likely to draw the lion’s share of media buzz as the tournament begins.

With the exception of Serena, all of the American women are seeded in line with their official WTA ranking. In the case of Serena, ranked No. 183 in the world, the decision was made to give her a seed in order to produce a balanced draw, factoring her return from giving birth to daughter Olympia in September into account.
 

Serena’s inclusion means world No. 32 Dominika Cibulkova, who would have otherwise been seeded, is now unseeded and eligible to face any of the other players in the 128-player field in the first round.

Serena will not face another seed until the third round at the earliest, when she could potentially face a Top-8 player.
 

Serena is one of five U.S. women to be given a seeding, along with No. 4 Sloane Stephens, No. 9 Venus Williams, No. 10 Madison Keys and No. 16 Coco Vandeweghe.
 

Stephens is having the best 12 months of her career, following a maiden Grand Slam triumph in New York last September, a Fed Cup title in November and a second-place finish at the French Open last month.
 

Five-time Wimbledon champion Venus has not won on the grass of London since she defended her title in 2008, but she has reached the semifinals or better in half of her past eight majors, including a run to the Wimbledon final last summer.
 

Twenty-three-year-old Keys is also in the best form of her life, with appearances in the US Open final, the Australian Open quarterfinals and French Open semifinals all under her belt within the past 10 months.

Vandeweghe, meanwhile, is always dangerous on grass, as backed up by two quarterfinals and a fourth-round showing at the All England Club in her previous three trips to the English capital.

On the men’s side, big-serving John Isner is the top-ranked American at No. 9. He is joined by 11^th-seeded Sam Querrey and No. 19 seed Jack Sock.  
 

Wimbledon takes into account a man’s two-year grass-court performance, although previous grass-court results are only used to determine the order of players already ranked inside the Top 32.
 

Isner is seeded one place higher than his ATP World Tour ranking of 10, while Querrey is up two spots from his ranking of No. 13. Sock is seeded four places below his current ranking of No. 19.
 

Isner has never been past the third round at Wimbledon, even though his huge serve is the perfect weapon for the slick lawns. Davis Cup teammate Querrey, though, has had no such problems, reaching the quarterfinals in 2016 and the Final Four 12 months ago.
 

Both times, Querrey turned in performances that sent waves around the tennis world. In 2016, Querrey defeated world No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the third round. A year later, he dispatched another No. 1 seed, Andy Murray, in the quarterfinals.
 

Sock has struggled on the Grand Slam stage, with three consecutive first-round losses, and he has failed to win back-to-back singles matches on tour in 2018. But he is coming off a strong end to 2017 that saw him win an ATP Masters 1000 title in Paris and reach the semifinals of the year-end Nitto ATP Finals in London.