French Open Men’s Seedings: Rafael Nadal Top Seed For A Third Time

For the second third time in his career Rafael Nadal will be the top seed at his favorite, most successful tennis event on the tour, the 2014 French Open. Because of his 650-point lead in the ATP rankings, Nadal will be seeded ahead of No. 2 Novak Djokovic despite the loss to the Serb today in the Rome Masters final.

The only other times Nadal was seeded No. 1 at the French Open was in 2011 when he beat Roger Federer in the final and in 2009 when he lost to Robin Soderling.

Nadal has won the tournament eight times.

The 2014 seedings in Paris are based on the ATP Rankings as of Monday, May 19. Here’s the projected Top 16 seeds:

1 Rafael Nadal
2 Novak Djokovic
3 Stanislas Wawrinka
4 Roger Federer
5 David Ferrer
6 Tomas Berdych
7 Andy Murray
8 Milos Raonic
9 Kei Nishikori
10 John Isner
11 Grigor Dimitrov
12 Richard Gasquet
13 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga
14 Fabio Fognini
15 Mikhail Youzhny
16 Tommy Haas

Wawrinka and Federer will be placed randomly in either the Nadal or Djokovic halves. The players 5-8 will also be placed randomly as will those 9-16.

The French Open draw will be released on Friday. Play begins next Sunday.