AFP
London, June 17

Lleyton Hewitt and Venus Williams have been named as the top seeds for next week's Wimbledon, the All England Club revealed Monday.

Former Wimbledon champion Pete Sampras was meanwhile given his lowest Wimbledon seeding in 11 years for this year's tournament which will not feature champion Goran Ivanisevic -- who has withdrawn with a shoulder injury.

Sampras, who won seven of his 13 Grand Slam titles on the slick grass courts, was seeded seventh for the tournament which starts on June 24, despite a lowly world ranking of 13.

Russia's Marat Safin is second seed and Andre Agassi third, with Britain's Tim Henman fourth.

Henman is hoping to improve on last year when he crashed out to Ivanisevic in the semi-finals after a lengthy rain-delay contributed to his eventual defeat.

Fellow Briton Greg Rusedski has meanwhile been favoured by the Wimbledon seeding panel, as he is seeded 24th despite having a world ranking of 38.

The organisers take the world's top 32 ranked players for their seeds, but then reserve the right to make changes within those 32 based on grass court results.

And the big-serving British number two benefited from the withdrawal of France's Sebastien Grosjean and Ivanisevic with injury, and Spaniards Carlos Moya and French Open champion Albert Costa who have decided not to play at the All England Club.

"I don't deserve to be seeded based on my ranking," Rusedski admitted. "Thank God for the players who pulled out. It makes life a little bit easier because you know for your first two matches you face players who are beatable on the surface, but there are still one or two players you would like to avoid."

Rusedski and Henman will hope to copy Virginia Wade -- the last British player to win a Wimbledon single's title in 1977 -- and win the title in a Jubilee year.

However, last year's finalist Pat Rafter believes Hewitt can ruin Britain's Jubilee dream and continue his impressive grass-court form at the All England Club.

Rafter, a former team-mate of Hewitt's in the Australian Davis Cup team, believes the top seed has a great chance of succeeding Goran Ivanisevic as champion.

"The sight of Lleyton doing well at Queen's is very encouraging," said Rafter, whose final place last year was his second in a row. "He struggled a bit at the French Open but I've always thought Wimbledon would be his tournament."

In the women's draw, defending champion Venus Williams is named top seed, and she will be pleased that her sister Serena was seeded second -- keeping them in different halves of the draw and raising the possibility of an all Williams' final for the third time in 10 months.

Venus beat Serena in the US Open last year while Serena topped her older sibling on the clay courts of the French Open last month.

Americans Jennifer Capriati is the third seed with Monica Seles fourth and Belgian duo Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin - last year's beaten finalist - fifth and sixth respectively.