How Is the Wimbledon Player Selection List Determined?

There are three ways in which a player can participate in The Championships:

World ranking

The majority of players qualify for the Wimbledon Championships via their world ranking. A player’s ranking is based upon the results in the previous 52 weeks of tournaments, on a rolling basis.

Players are given ranking points based on how well they do, with more prestigious events giving out more points. Usually the top 100 or so players in the world rankings are able to participate in The Championships.

There are also some players that use a protected ranking to enter. A player is able to use a protected ranking when they have had a long period out of the game due to injury, and have seen their ranking fall as a result.

Wildcards

If a player does not gain entry to the Championships via their ranking, they can hope to be awarded a wildcard.

The Tournament can award up to 8 wildcards into each of the Singles draws. For The Championships most wildcards are usually given to British players (they received 10 of the total 15 singles wildcards in 2022).

The rest of the wildcards are given to those who win one of the grass court events in the lead-up to the Championships, as well as former Grand Slam champions or players who have had previous success at Wimbledon.

The most famous wildcard ever was given to Goran Ivanesevic in 2001. Ivanesevic had reached the Final on three previous occasions, but his recent results were so poor that his ranking was not high enough to get in. Courtesy of his wildcard, he went on to win the event.

Qualifying

Players who weren’t ranked high enough to gain automatic entry and weren’t fortunate enough to receive a wildcard have to go through qualifying rounds.

The qualifying draw is typically made up of players ranked between 100 and 250 in the world, and they battle it out for places in the main draw. Unlike the other Grand Slam tournaments, Wimbledon qualifying takes place off site at the Bank of England Sports Centre in Roehampton, in order to protect the grass courts for the main draw.

Players have to win three qualifying matches to reach the promised land of the main draw, 16 men and 16 women from the qualifying rounds make it through each year.

There are also wildcards for the qualifying rounds, which again are usually given to lower-ranked British players. The Wimbledon Boys and Girls champions from the previous year are usually offered a wildcard into the qualifying rounds of the Gentlemen’s and Ladies’ events.

How are the seeds for Wimbledon decided?

Being seeded at Wimbledon gives you an advantage, as it means you can’t play high ranked players until the later rounds of the Tournament.

Seeds are allocated to players in accordance with the world rankings, with the world number 1 heading into the Tournament being the 1st seed, and the world number 2 being the 2nd seed, and so on.

In some cases, for example, if the world number 6 misses the event due to injury, the world number 7 takes their place as the 6th seed, and everyone below moves up a spot.

In total, there are 32 seeds in each of the Gentlemen’s and Ladies’ Singles events.

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