Leander Paes, gunning for his second medal in his sixth Olympic Games, may be upset about getting a partner ranked 209 in the world, but he will find himself among the majority of the top-10 doubles players who will not get a seeding in the London Olympics.
Ironically, both the joint No. players — Max Mirnyi of Belarus and Daniel Nestor of Canada — have partners ranked 174 (Alexander Bury) and 104 (Vasek Pospisil) respectively.
The better of the singles and doubles rankings of a player is considered both for his entry and seeding.
Bronze medallists at the last edition in Beijing, and jointly ranked third, the Bryan brothers of the US, Bob and Mike, are likely to be seeded No., unless there is a dramatic change of fortunes.
France’s Michael Llodra with his doubles rank and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga with his singles rank could be the second seeds, ahead of the Serbs, Janko Tipsarevic and Nenad Zimonjic, top-10 in singles and doubles respectively.
World No.1 Novak Djokovic will be playing doubles with Victor Troicki, possibly without a seeding.
Spaniards, Rafael Nadal with Marcel Granollers and David Ferrer with Feliciano Lopez are very likely to be seeded ahead of the Beijing gold medallists Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland.
However, the second best national combination behind the Bryan brothers in the current list, Poles Mariusz Fystenberg and Marcin Matkowski could be ahead of the Spaniards.
The Czech combination of Tomas Berdych with his singles rank and Radek Stepanek with his doubles spot could sneak into the seedings list, possibly keeping the Indians out.
Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna, the third best national combination in the rankings list, could boost their chances of a seeding with a good show at Wimbledon or at the tournament thereafter, as the seedings for the Olympics would be based on the rankings as of July 23.
While the tenth ranked doubles player Robert Lindstedt of Sweden will attempt to strike a strong combination with the 66th ranked Johan Brunstrom, the 12th ranked Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan does not even figure in the doubles field, as he could not get a wild card with Aqeel Khan, ranked 1520 in singles.
John Isner and Andy Roddick of the US, Andy Murray and Jamie Murray of Great Britain, Jurgen Melzer and Alexander Peya of Austria apart from Israelis Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram could be some of the dangerous floaters in the draw.
Quite interestingly — as the ITF pointed out when announcing the final list of entries — 19 of the top 20 players in both the men’s and women’s singles will compete at the Olympics, making it the strongest field ever.
Three of the four gold medallists from the last Games will return to defend their crown: only the women's champion Elena Dementieva of Russia — who has retired — will not be at the London Games; the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, men’s champion Rafael Nadal, and Federer and Wawrinka will hope to replicate — or even better, in some instances — their success.
