Nadal Leads a Strong Spanish Charge at This Year’s Wimbledon

Rafael Nadal is ready to kick some grass at the All England Club… And, he’s leading a strong charge of seeded Latino players competing at Wimbledon.

Despite winning his ninth French Open title and maintaining his World No. 1 ranking, the 28-year-old Spanish tennis superstar has been seeded No. 2 at this year’s Grand Slam tournament.

Rafael Nadal

Nadal was relegated to the No. 2 spot when his French Open final foe Novak Djokovic, the 2011 Wimbledon champion, was given the top seeding by the All England Club ahead of him. Tournament officials take a player’s grass-court record into account when assigning the men’s seedings.

Defending men’s champion Andy Murray, who last year became the first British player to win the Wimbledon men’s title since 1936, was bumped up two spots above his world ranking to No. 3.

Seven-time champion Roger Federer is No. 4, while Australian Open winner Stan Wawrinka is down two spots from his world ranking at No. 5.

But Nadal isn’t the only Hispanic tenista earning a seed at this year’s event…

In all, there are nine Latinos among the 32 seeded players – all hailing from Spain – including David Ferrer at No. 7, Fernando Verdasco at No. 18 and Feliciano Lopez at No. 19.

Here’s the complete list of seeds (with their world ranking in parenthesis):

Men

1. Novak Djokovic, Serbia (2)
2. Rafael Nadal, Spain (1)
3. Andy Murray, Britain (5)
4. Roger Federer, Switzerland (4)
5. Stan Wawrinka, Switzerland (3)
6. Tomas Berdych, Czech Republic (6)
7. David Ferrer, Spain (7)
8. Milos Raonic, Canada (9)
9. John Isner, United States (11)
10. Kei Nishikori, Japan (12)
11. Grigor Dimitrov, Bulgaria (13)
12. Ernests Gulbis, Latvia (10)
13. Richard Gasquet, France (14)
14. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, France (17)
15. Jerzy Janowicz, Poland (24)
16. Fabio Fognini, Italy (15)
17. Mikhail Youzhny, Russia (16)
18. Fernando Verdasco, Spain (23)
19. Feliciano Lopez, Spain (25)
20. Kevin Anderson, South Africa (18)
21. Alexandr Dolgopolov, Ukraine, (19)
22. Philipp Kohlschreiber, Germany (27)
23. Tommy Robredo, Spain (22)
24. Gael Monfils, France (21)
25. Nicolas Almagro, Spain (26)
26. Andreas Seppi, Italy (34)
27. Marin Cilic, Croatia (29)
28. Roberto Bautista Agut, Spain (28)
29. Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Spain (31)
30. Ivo Karlovic, Croatia (33)
31. Marcel Ganollers, Spain, (30)
32. Dmitry Tursunov, Russia (32)

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