Top-ranked Rafael Nadal and defending champion Roger Federer have been seeded first and second for the Australian Open, meaning they can only play each other at Melbourne Park this month if they set up a rematch of last year\u2019s final.<\/p>\n
Federer was coming off an extended injury break and was seeded 17th at last year\u2019s Australian Open when he beat Nadal, who was seeded ninth, in five sets in the final. Grigor Dimitrov, a semifinalist here last year, is seeded third and six-time champion Novak Djokovic \u2013 coming back from a six-month injury layoff \u2013 is 14th.<\/p>\n
The seedings for the season\u2019s first major tournament reflected the rankings in the both singles tournaments. The draw was scheduled for later Thursday.<\/p>\n
Serena Williams decided not to defend her Australian title, saying that just four months after having her first child that her tennis hadn\u2019t yet returned to a level where she felt could win a Grand Slam title.<\/p>\n
Two-time French Open finalist Simona Halep, yet to win a major, is seeded No. 1 in the women\u2019s draw, with Caroline Wozniacki at No. 2 and Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza at No. 3.<\/p>\n
Venus Williams, who lost the Australian final to her younger sister Serena last year, is seeded fifth. French Open winner Jelena Ostapenko is seeded No. 7 and U.S. Open winner Sloane Stephens is No. 13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Top-ranked Rafael Nadal and defending champion Roger Federer have been seeded first and second for the Australian Open, meaning they can only play each other at Melbourne Park this month if they set up a rematch of last year\u2019s final. Federer was coming off an extended injury break and was seeded 17th at last year\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18186,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18184\/revisions\/18186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}