Wimbledon: Who are the most dangerous floaters in 2015?

Wimbledon: Who are the most dangerous floaters?

Wimbledon is set to get under way next week and attention is switching to the draw ahead of the championships. Much has been made about the Grand Slam draws recently, with more significance than ever being placed on how the players are pulled out.

We have spoken at length about the seeding situations heading into the third major of the year, but the unseeded players warrant conversation in equal measure. Of the 128 man draw, the top 32 seeds are guaranteed to avoid each other until at least the third round.

Their paths in round one and two will be populated by the remaining 96 players in the draw, who have made it into the entry list either directly through their ATP ranking, through three rounds of qualifying or via a wild card or a protected ranking.

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The term ‘floaters’ has been coined in the tennis community to describe unseeded players who could pose a threat to the seeded players. This is because they can be placed anywhere in the draw, so for example any of the 96 unseeded players can face Novak Djokovic in round one.

This may seem like a daunting prospect for the unseeded players, but for Djokovic and the other top guys in the field, it is a similarly precarious situation. They will be keen to avoid dangerous floaters, who are deemed so for one of three reasons.

First, a floater can be a player who is usually higher in the rankings, but may have fallen down on of the top 32 due to injury or lack of form. Fernando Verdasco (41), Marcos Baghdatis (59) and Alexander Dolgopolov (75) are all top players who are unseeded.

The second situation is encountering a grass court specialist, whose ranking is not representative of their grass court talents. Nicholas Mahut (65) is the prime example of a player who would be well inside the top 32 if more of the season was played on grass.

The third and final category, unique again to grass courts, is the big server. Dangerous on any court, put particularly on the skiddy, low bouncing grass, big servers can cause huge upsets. We have the likes of Gilles Muller (46) and Lukas Rosol (39) who are both extremely dangerous floaters.

Another example of this is Jerzy Janowicz (48), who epitomised what a floater can achieve, blasting his way all the way to the semi finals of Wimbledon in 2013. All eyes will be looking at the draw for a number of reasons, including looking where these players have ended up.

Keep your eye out on Lob and Smash to see where they end up straight after the draw happens on 26th June. We will have a full dissection of the draw right here!

Next: No sign of Top Spin 5, where are tennis video games?

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