Friday, 23 June, 2006

Nicolas Kiefer has withdrawn from Wimbledon, which gets under way at the All England Club next week.

The German number one, 29, reached the quarter-finals in 1997 and had been seeded 18 for this year's Championships.

No official reason for Kiefer's absence was given, although the 29-year-old had been forced to retire during his third-round match against Tomas Berdych at the French Open because of a wrist injury.

The withdrawal of Kiefer - who had made the semi-finals of the Australian Open during January - means Paradorn Srichaphan, 27, moves into the list of 32 seeds for Wimbledon.

Under the All England Club's surface-based system, the Thai player will be the 29th seed, with other players moved accordingly.

The draw for the 2006 tournament takes place in SW19 on Friday morning.

French Open champion Rafael Nadal, the clay-court specialist, has been seeded second behind defending champion Roger Federer, out to claim a fourth straight singles title.

Tim Henman, though, has not been seeded at Wimbledon for the first time in a decade - with no British players at all among the 64 seeds for the third grand slam of the year.

Henman's run to the semi-finals of the Stella Artois Championships - where he lost to Australian Lleyton Hewitt - lifted him from 76th to 62nd in the latest world rankings.

But although previous performances on grass in the last two years are also taken into account, the four-time Wimbledon semi-finalist will be unseeded at SW19 for the first time since 1996.

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