Tournament organisers at Wimbledon announced on Wednesday the seeds for the 2023 edition of The Championships, headlined by first seed Carlos Alcaraz and second seed Novak Djokovic.

From 2002-2019, Wimbledon used a seeding formula that took into account players’ success on grass. But starting from the 2021 edition (no tournament in 2020), organisers reverted to using the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

Alcaraz will be the top seed at the second consecutive major after leading the way at Roland Garros, where he lost in the semi-finals to Djokovic. The Serbian over the coming fortnight will try to tie Roger Federer’s record by claiming his eighth Wimbledon title.

Rounding out the Top 8 seeds are third seed Daniil Medvedev, fourth seed Casper Ruud, fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas, sixth seed Holger Rune, seventh seed Andrey Rublev and eighth seed Jannik Sinner.

Nick Kyrgios, the Australian who reached last year’s Wimbledon final, is World No. 33 in this week’s Pepperstone ATP Rankings. However, due to the withdrawal of Karen Khachanov and Pablo Carreno Busta, who would have been seeded, Kyrgios is the 31st seed. 

The last player to be seeded is 32nd seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. If there is a withdrawal among the seeds before Friday’s draw, Ben Shelton is next in line to be seeded.

An all-Californian clash on the English south coast went the way of Mackenzie McDonald on Wednesday in Eastbourne, where the World No. 64 downed top seed and defending champion Taylor Fritz at the Rothesay International.

McDonald recovered a break deficit in both sets to clinch a 7-6(3), 7-6(8) second-round victory at the grass-court ATP 250. His two-hour, 21-minute upset of the World No. 9 Fritz was McDonald’s third against an opponent in the Top 10 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, and his second of 2023 after he defeated then-World No. 2 Rafael Nadal at January’s Australian Open.

“It’s a big win for me,” said McDonald in his on-court interview. “Taylor’s a close friend, and it’s always tough playing your friends. It was a battle out there. I’m happy with how I competed and I think I put on a show today, so it was really fun.”

The 28-year-old McDonald stayed cool under pressure to triumph in his third Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting with Fritz, who lifted the trophy in Eastbourne in 2019 as well as 2022. McDonald rallied from 2-5 in the first set and 2-4 in the second, and was forced to save two set points in the second-set tie-break before sealing his spot in his fourth ATP Tour quarter-final of the year.

“[I was] a little bit [calm], but also stressed too,” said McDonald, when asked about how he had retained his composure at tight moments against Fritz. “Tennis isn’t all fun and games sometimes, but I tried to have more of a relaxed mindset today. I felt that a bit, and I think that really helped me.”

McDonald, who is making his debut in Eastbourne this week, will take on Mikael Ymer or home favourite Liam Broady in the last eight. Defeat in Eastbourne means that 2022 Wimbledon quarter-finalist Fritz heads to this year’s edition of the London major with a 2-3 record on grass for 2023.

Eighth seed Miomir Kecmanovic also rode out some tough moments to book his quarter-final spot on Wednesday. The Serbian saved a set point in the first-set tie-break and reeled off four games in a row from 2-4 in the second set for a 7-6(6), 6-4 win against qualifier Aleksandar Vukic. The World No. 41 Kecmanovic will take on Gregoire Barrere next, after the Frenchman upset fifth seed Nicolas Jarry 6-3, 4-6, 6-4.

Stefanos Tsitsipas has long been a fan of filmmaking, as evidenced by his creativity on social media as well as his YouTube channel, so it was no surprise to see the Greek participate in Netfflix’s Break Point filming.

The 2019 Nitto ATP Finals champion was featured in Episodes 6 and 7, with the main focus being his memorable clash against Nick Kyrgios at Wimbledon.

Tsitsipas spoke to ATPTour.com late last year about his experience filming Break Point, why he cares about more than the storylines featured and more.

Watch Episode 6 Trailer:

You always have loved filming and photography and videography. Was there anything particularly surprising from the whole Netflix experience?
How nice they were. The crew is so much fun to be working with. They were not just there to film, they were also very friendly and made the whole atmosphere very genuine for all of us to be part of this. They are a bunch of professionals that are trying to create nice memories with us. And I really appreciated them putting so much work into it. They seem quite smart as well.

Were there any times that you sort of wished the cameras weren’t there?
No, but I had one moment where I actually felt grateful they were there with my match I think with Kyrgios at Wimbledon. It was a moment where [there was] so much drama, and I’m glad they filmed it.

Does it make you thankful that people are going to be able to see what actually happened and what you actually thought?
Yeah exactly, that’s it. It opens for the truth to be told and shared and each person’s perspective of things. It’s good for the sport, it’s good for the sport. Not everything has to be clean and beautiful and elegant…

They’ve been extremely respectful of things and I always told them yes in situations that I was comfortable [in]. They never really crossed any lines and made me feel uncomfortable. I didn’t have moments where I felt like they stepped out of line.

You’re focused on your tennis, you’re trying to win, but then you love this sort of stuff. So how did you balance the two?
I wouldn’t consider it a distraction. It’s something that our sport needed for a long time. People don’t really see the behind the scenes, they only see us on TV performing, playing. Very few of us have YouTube channels where we get to expose some other things except our professional careers and tennis needed some of that open view. Everything is just so private these days with a lot of the players and it’s important to showcase the personalities and the strong-minded people and athletes that are out there.

How much Netflix do you watch?
I had periods where I watched it a lot. I was browsing through different TV shows and movies. Currently, I’m not really following anything specific. But I did watch one TV show that I really liked Man Vs. Bee, Rowan Atkinson recently. [It is] a very high production in terms of filmmaking and I enjoy watching whenever I have free time, whenever I have a bit of time off.

But the thing is, I don’t feel like I’m very productive when I watch Netflix. I’m a guy that always likes to go to sleep that night and feel like I’ve done something productive and important for myself, kind of seize the day as I like to say.

So do you want to binge Break Point when it comes out?
No, I will definitely not be binging anything. I’m watching it the proper way every single frame that’s coming up.

So you don’t want to just see the storylines. You want to see how they edited it together?
Everything. I want to see every single detail that they put in place, every single thing, the structure of it. I’m paying attention to every single thing. It’s going to be very interesting because they’ve been following a few good personalities in our sport. And I would like to further see what stories they were able to film with those individuals, including myself, the variation, the storytelling and also the narrative that they are going to follow.

Tuesday saw Feliciano Lopez play his first match at his last ever tournament, the Mallorca Championships. Not only did he delay his goodbye to the ATP Tour with a convincing win, he also sealed another record to cap off his long career.

The Spaniard, who beat Max Purcell 6-3, 7-5 in round one, served up 11 aces. According to Infosys ATP Stats, his new haul of 10,244 untouched serves puts him fourth on the all-time list of career aces.

The 41-year-old Toledo native leapfrogged serving great Goran Ivanisevic on the list. The Croatian was one of his childhood heroes.

“It’s a good stat, because Ivanisevic was one of my favourite players,” Feliciano told ATPTour.com. “When I was little, I always dreamed of being able to serve like him one day and now I’ve overtaken him on the list.

“I knew that I was among the top seven or eight, but I didn’t know exactly where. Surpassing Ivanisevic is a great achievement, I can’t say anything else. Thanks for letting me know,” he concluded with a smile.

Career Aces

To find the next Spaniard on the list you have to go down to Nicolas Almagro, who had a total of 5,493, while Fernando Verdasco completes the honourary podium with 5,422.

On Wednesday, Lopez will be back on court in the second round of the Mallorca Championships against Jordan Thompson. Once again, he will be battling to make sure it is not the last match of his career.

Editor’s Note: ATP began keeping ace statistics in 1991. Ivanisevic turned pro in 1988. 

Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury survived a first-round scare Tuesday at the Rothesay International in Eastbourne.

The second seeds saved two match points in a Match Tie-break to defeat Robert Galloway and Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela 6-3, 6-7(6), 13-11. Ram and Salisbury won 86 per cent of points behind their first delivery and will next face Romain Arneodo and Sam Weissborn in the second round.

Top seeds Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek continued their hot streak by ousting Argentines Francisco Cerundolo and Tomas Martin Etcheverry. Dodig and Krajicek have won 11 consecutive matches with titles at Roland Garros and last week in London. The Croatian-American pair will next meet home favourites Liam Broady and Jonny O’Mara.

Mallorca
Yuki Bhambri and Lloyd Harris cruised past Alexander Erler and Lucas Miedler 6-3, 6-2 after winning 23 of 25 first-serve points at the Mallorca Championships. The Indian-South African duo did not face a break point throughout the 52-minute contest to set a second-round clash against fourth seeds Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos.

Robin Haase and Philipp Oswald saved all five break points faced as they rallied to beat French duo Sadio Doumbia and Fabien Reboul 6-7(4), 6-3, 10-8.

The world’s best players, including seven-time champion Novak Djokovic, are practising at Wimbledon ahead of the grass-court major.

Djokovic, Holger Rune, Jannik Sinner, Jiri Lehecka, Alexander Zverev and Andrey Rublev were photographed training at SW19 on Tuesday.

Novak Djokovic” />

Djokovic has won the past four editions of The Championships. If the Serbian wins the title, he will have claimed the first three majors of the season for the second time in three years (also 2021).

Jannik Sinner stretches at practice on Tuesday ahead of Wimbledon.” />

Sinner defeated Stan Wawrinka and Carlos Alcaraz en route to the Wimbledon quarter-finals last year. The Italian won the first two sets before falling to eventual champion Djokovic in five.

Tomas Berdych mentors Jiri Lehecka at training Tuesday at Wimbledon.” />

Former World No. 4 Tomas Berdych was spotted on the practice court with fellow Czech star Jiri Lehecka, who will be competing at the grass-court major for the second time.

Alexander Zverev walks to practice on Tuesday at Wimbledon.” />

Alexander Zverev will try to advance past the fourth round at The Championships for the first time this year.

Andrey Rublev enjoys a break during practice on Tuesday at Wimbledon.” />

Andrey Rublev will carry momentum into Wimbledon after making the final of the Terra Wortmann Open, an ATP 500 event played on grass in Halle.

All photos courtesy of Clive Brunskill/Getty Images