French Open: Seeding details, Nadal down at seven

The French Open is just around the corner and with the Rome Masters having reached a conclusion we now have a clearer picture than ever before of the seeding situation. It is a unique situation in many ways, as the tennis community has been on the edge of their seats over Rafael Nadal’s ranking.

It had been a possibility than many had thrown about at the start of the clay season, but often this had been rebuffed as the common thought was that Nadal would secure enough points on the clay to be inside the Top Four in Paris. That has proven not to be the case and Nadal now finds himself as the 7th seed heading in the French Open.

This means that he will face one of the top four seeds at the quarter final stage, should both parties make it that far through the draw. It is a scary prospect, not only for Nadal, but also for Djokovic, Federer, Murray and Berdych, all of whom will be desperate not to face the 9 time Champions at such an early stage.

Seed	Player	Nation	Points
1	Novak Djokovic	SRB	13845
2	Roger Federer	SUI	9235
3	Andy Murray	GBR	7040
4	Tomas Berdych	CZE	5230
5	Kei Nishikori	JPN	5220
6	Milos Raonic	CAN	4800
7	Rafael Nadal	ESP	4570
8	David Ferrer	ESP	4490
9	Stan Wawrinka	SUI	3845
10	Marin Cilic	CRO	3325
11	Grigor Dimitrov	BUL	2760
12	Feliciano Lopez	ESP	2280
13	Gilles Simon	FRA	2210
14	Gael Monfils	FRA	2065
15	Jo Wilfried Tsonga	FRA	2045
16	Kevin Anderson	RSA	1970

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In a strange way it will be the lower seeds from 5 to 8 surrounding Nadal who benefit from this, as they will at least avoid him until the semi finals. If Milos Raonic fails to recover from surgery in time, Nadal will be boosted to 6th seed, although in terms of the draw this is almost meaningless.

It is the lowest Nadal has ever been seeded heading into the French Open, even when he won the event back in 2005 for the first time he was the number four seed. He faces a huge challenge to lift his 10th title, potentially having a route that includes Murray, then Federer then Djokovic.

Seed	Player	Nation	Points
17	John Isner	USA	1935
18	David Goffin	BEL	1835
19	Tommy Robredo	ESP	1755
20	Roberto Bautista Agut	ESP	1750
21	Richard Gasquet	FRA	1625
22	Pablo Cuevas	URU	1502
23	Leonardo Mayer	ARG	1430
24	Guillermo Garcia Lopez	ESP	1335
25	Ivo Karlovic	CRO	1330
26	Bernard Tomic	AUS	1320
27	Fabio Fognini	ITA	1295
28	Philipp Kohlschreiber	GER	1285
29	Ernests Gulbis	LAT	1230
30	Nick Kyrgios	AUS	1230
31	Adrian Mannarino	FRA	1223
32	Viktor Troicki	SRB	1217

A few of the potential 32 seeds are in action this week at ATP events in Geneva and Nice, although both are 250 events so won’t have a huge say on the seeding situation. There are six players outside of the seeding position who can make a last ditch attempt to be seeded.

Those players are Juan Monaco, Jack Sock, Sam Querrey and Dominic Thiem who are playing in Nice. Meanwhile in Geneva the remaining two hopefuls are Lukas Rosol who came all the way through qualifying and Pablo Andujar. All six men will be eyeing up Viktor Troicki’s place in the rankings at the Serb is not playing this week.

Next: What can Rafael Nadal achieve on the clay?

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