Controversial Wimbledon seedings

Press, 18 June 1986, Page 68

Controversial Wimbledon seedings

NZPA-AFP London Wimbledon tennis officials have sparked controversy with their seedings, announced yesterday, for this year’s singles competitions by purely following the world rankings. They left Boris Becker, brilliant winner of the title at the age of 17 last year, as low as fourth seed, behind Ivan Lendl, never a winner on grass, Mats Wilander, a man who is at his best on clay, and an ageing Jimmy Connors. Wimbledon has traditionally had a reputation of leading the world in seedings, but the seeding committee issued a state-

ment saying it had decided “there were no reasons to deviate from the latest computer ranking list” “Normally changes have been made to take into account special factors but such circumstances do not arise this year,” it said. To suggest that Martin Jaite should be seeded fourteenth at Wimbledon makes a mockery of the committee’s findings. Jaite, an Argentinian Davis Cup player, has never done anything on grass and is never likely to do so. He has never played in the championships. Nor has Mikael Pern-

fors, the young Swede who reached the final of the recent French championships in Paris on clay — but he is seeded thirteenth. Two other clay court specialists, Andres Gomez, of Ecuador, and Guillermo Vilas, of Argentina, have been seeded ninth and fifteenth respectively. No room was left in the 16 seeded men for grass specialists such as the hard-hitting Yugoslav, Slobodan Zivojinovic, who put out Wilander in the first round last year or the American, Paul Annacone, who has twice had good Wimbledon runs.

This is a year when John McEnroe and Yannick Noah, the French No. 1, currently fourth and fifth in the world, are not playing in the championships. Perhaps the only redeeming feature is that Tim Mayotte, who won the tournament at Queen’s Club on Sunday, is seeded as high as tenth. The women’s list is perhaps not so bad as few of the leading competitors have really big serves and whether playing on grass or clay makes little difference. The titleholder, Martina Navratilova, is the

top seed despite losing to Chris Evert Lloyd in the final of the French Open last week. Evert Lloyd has been seeded second ahead of the West German teenager, Steffi Graf. The seedings are: Men: Ivan Lendl (Czechoslovakia), Mats Wilander (Sweden), Jimmy Connors (U.S.), Boris Becker (West Germany), Stefan Edberg (Sweden), Joakim Nystrom (Sweden), Henri Leconte (France), Anders Jarryd (Sweden), Andres Gomez (Ecuador), Tim Mayotte (U.S.), Kevin Curren (U.S.), Brad Gilbert (U.S.), Mikael Pern-

fors (Sweden), Martin Jaite (Argentina), Guillermo Vilas (Argentina), Johan Kriek (U.S.). Women: Martina Navratilova (U.S.), Chris Evert LLoyd (U.S.), Steffi Graf (West Germany), Hana Mandlikova (Czechoslovakia), Claudia Kohde-Kilsch (West Germany), Pam Shriver (U.S.), Kathy Rinaldi (U.S.), Helena Sukova (Czechoslovakia), Manuela Maleeva (Bulgaria), Zina Garrison (U.S.), Gabriella Sabatini (Argentina), Carling Bassett (Canada), Stephenie Rehe (U.S.), Barbara Potter (U.S.), Wendy Turnbull (Australia), Catarina Lindqvist (Sweden).