Tennis: Williams climbs Wimbledon seedings

Defending champion Serena Williams has been promoted up the seedings from her world ranking of 10 to No 1 for next week's championships.

Her sister Venus, who triumphed here in 2000 and 2001 before finishing runner-up to Serena the following two years, has also been elevated five places from her WTA ranking and named third seed by the organisers. Newly-crowned French Open winner Anastasia Myskina, the highest-ranked woman in the draw following the withdrawals of the world's top two players, Justine Henin-Hardenne and Kim Clijsters, was seeded second behind Serena.

United States legend Martina Navratilova, 47, confirmed her acceptance of a wildcard.

In the men's event, champion Roger Federer has been made top seed, ahead of world No 2 Andy Roddick.

Men's seeds: R. Federer (Switzerland) 1, A. Roddick (US) 2, G. Coria (Argentina) 3, D. Nalbandian (Argentina) 4, T. Henman (Britain) 5, J. C. Ferrero (Spain) 6, L. Hewitt (Australia) 7, R. Schuettler (Germany) 8, C. Moya (Spain) 9, S. Grosjean (France) 10.

M. Philippoussis (Australia) 11, S. Schalken (Netherlands) 12, P. Srichaphan (Thailand) 13, M. Fish (US) 14, N. Massu (Chile) 15, J. Novak (Czech Republic) 16, J. Bjorkman (Sweden) 17, F. Lopez (Spain) 18, M. Safin (Russia) 19, T. Rebredo (Spain) 20.

J. I. Ignacio Chela (Argentina) 21, A. Pavel (Romania) 22, M. Mirnyi (Belarus) 23, F. Gonzalez (Chile) 24, D. Hrbaty (Slovakia) 25, T. Dent (US) 26, R. Ginepri (US) 27, I. Ljubicic (Croatia) 28, N. Kiefer (Germany) 29, V. Spadea (US) 30, M. Youzhny (Russia) 31, H. Arazi (Morocco) 32.

Women's seeds: S. Williams (US) 1, A. Myskina (Russia) 2, V. Williams (US) 3, A. Mauresmo (France) 4, L. Davenport (US) 5, E. Dementieva (Russia) 6, J. Capriati (US) 7, S. Kuznetsova (Russia) 8, P. Suarez (Argentina) 9, N. Petrova (Russia) 10, A. Sugiyama (Japan) 11, V. Zvonareva (Russia) 12, M. Sharapova (Russia) 13, S. F. Elia (Italy) 14, P. Schnyder (Switzerland) 15, A. Smashnova-Pistolesi (Israel) 16, C. Rubin (US) 17, F. Schiavone (Italy) 18, F. Zuluaga (Colombia) 19, E. Bovina (Russia) 20.

M. Maleeva (Bulgaria) 21, C. Martinez (Spain) 22, J. Dokic (Serbia and Montenegro) 23, M. Pierce (France) 24, N. Dechy (France) 25, L. Raymond (US), 26, A. Molik (Australia) 27, E. Loit (France) 28, D. Safina (Russia) 29, E. Daniilidou (Greece) 30, A. Frazier (US) 31, M. Shaughnessy (US) 32.