Murray Gets No Favours From Sw19 Seedings As Borg Warns on Injuries

Andy Murray believes he is one of the top half-dozen grass-court players in the world and as evidence can point to his victory over Andy Roddick two years ago at the age of 19, in the third round at Wimbledon. But having missed the grass season last year with a wrist injury, the Scot received no bump up yesterday when the seedings were announced - unlike the Australian, French and US Opens where the seedings are based on current world rankings, Wimbledon uses a formula that takes into account a player's record on grass over the past two years.

The main beneficiaries yesterday were Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus and the Czech Republic's Tomas Berdych. Baghdatis, a quarter-finalist at SW19 last year and a semi-finalist the year before when he beat Murray in the fourth round, was moved up from No25 in the world rankings to 10th seed while Berdych, also a quarter-finalist last year and, in Roger Federer's absence, the winner of the 2007 Halle grass-court tournament, moved up from being ranked 19th to No11 seed.

Murray is seeded No12, one place below his ranking, and so he will avoid meeting Federer, Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic, the top three seeds, until the quarter-finals.

This will be Murray's 11th grand slam tournament and he has yet to get beyond the last 16. He was beaten in the first round of the Australian Open this year by France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who is injured and misses Wimbledon, while in the recent French Open he lost in the third round against Spain's Nicolas Almagro.

"It looked like I had a decent draw at the Australian Open and then I played Tsonga in the first round and the guy ends up making the final. Nowadays there are so many floaters that can play well, like Ernests Gulbis who I played at Queen's - he had a great run at the French Open."

It was while beating the Latvian teenager that Murray fell and injured his right thumb last week, although he played in an exhibition match earlier this week.

The all-important draw will be made at the All England Club tomorrow. "After that you just have concentrate on each match. You kind of know what's going on around you but you don't look too far ahead," said Murray. "I feel like I'm one of the top grass-court players in the world."

Bjorn Borg, the five-time Wimbledon winner, said he thought Murray would win Wimbledon but not this year. "I don't think he's going to win Wimbledon this year," said Borg, "but I think definitely in future Andy can win that tournament. But he needs to play all the time because he has a great game, he can beat anyone, he can win any kind of tournament. But he is still very young, so he is definitely a top player of the future."

However he added that Murray had to stay fit. "Unfortunately, he has been a little bit unlucky with injuries over the last year. I think the important thing is for him to keep playing and stay away from injuries. If you look at Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, you very rarely see them injured."

The women's seedings, as per usual, went strictly by the rankings, which could mean that Serbia's Ana Ivanovic, the world No1 and French Open champion, Venus Williams, the reigning Wimbledon champion, and the former winners Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams could all end up on the same side of the draw.