Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams, the respective top players in the world in Men's and Women's professional tennis, were installed as the top seeds on Wednesday for next week's Wimbledon Championships.
Williams, a five-time Wimbledon singles champion, is bidding for her 21st career Grand Slam title, an achievement which would place her one behind Steffi Graf for second all-time. Additionally, Williams can keep her bid for a calendar grand slam intact, following her titles at the Australian Open and French Open earlier this year. Graf captured all four Grand Slam singles titles in 1988, marking just the third time in history that a woman accomplished the challenging feat. Williams last captured Wimbledon in 2012.
Defending champion Petra Kvitova, a two-time Wimbledon champ, is ranked second, ahead of Simona Haley, Maria Sharapova and Caroline Wozniacki. In 2004, Sharapova won her first and only Wimbledon singles title with a victory over Williams in the finals. Sharapova has only advanced past the fourth round at Wimbledon once in the last four years.
On the men's side, defending champion Djokovic is in search of his third career Wimbledon title. Djokovic's grand slam hopes were ended in a four-set loss to Stan Wawrinka in the French Open final. Wawrinka, a two-time Grand Slam champion, is seeded fourth behind Djokovic, Roger Federer and Andy Murray. Kei Nishikori of Japan, Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic, Milos Raonic of Canada, David Ferrer of Spain, Marin Cilic of Croatia and Rafael Nadal round out the top 10.
Nadal, a two-time Wimbledon champion, received his lowest seeding ever at the All England Club.
Both singles champions in 2015 will earn £1.88m, an increase of £120,000 on last year. The overall earnings pool will rise from £25m to £26.75m, a 7% increase.
