Lendl, Graf Top Wimbledon Seeds; McEnroe Jumps Up to No. 4 Spot

Ivan Lendl, who has never won at Wimbledon, for the second year in a row was seeded No. 1 today for the grass-court event.

Defending champion Boris Becker was seeded second and Stefan Edberg was seeded third.

John McEnroe, ranked eighth in the world, got the biggest boost from tournament organizers when he was seeded fourth. That moved him ahead of three players in front of him in the computer rankings.

In the women’s draw, defending champion Steffi Graf got the No. 1 seed as expected, with eight-time winner Martina Navratilova second and French Open champion Monica Seles third.

Jennifer Capriati, the 14-year-old from Florida who reached the French Open semifinals, was seeded 12th.

In the men’s draw, French Open champion Andres Gomez of Ecuador, ranked fourth in the world, was seeded fifth, while Americans Brad Gilbert and Aaron Krickstein, ranked sixth and eighth, were seeded seventh and eighth respectively.

Three others ranked above McEnroe in the world, American Andre Agassi, Austrian Thomas Muster and Spaniard Emilio Sanchez, won’t play at Wimbledon.

The All-England Lawn Tennis Club stuck to the computer rankings for the most part in handing out the seeds for the two-week-long event that begins one week from today.

Lendl has been No. 1 in the world since February, 1989, and--although Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam event he has never won--he showed his improved grass-court game by beating Becker in straight sets for the title at Queens Club, the major men’s warm-up tournament, Sunday.

Becker just moved past Edberg in the rankings.

While Wimbledon abides generally by world rankings for its seedings, it has the option of taking known grass-court form into account, and McEnroe was awarded for his past performances on grass. McEnroe, a three-time Wimbledon champion, was a semifinalist in last week’s London grass-court championships in his first event after a four-month injury break.

Another surprise in the seedings saw 14th-ranked American Tim Mayotte, once a Wimbledon semifinalist and five times a quarter-finalist, seeded sixth.