Seeds for the UK’s favorite sporting event have been released. Unlike the other grand slams where the top 32 seeds in the men's and women's singles are decided purely on world rankings, Wimbledon takes into account results on grass in the past two years.

However, you will notice that player seeds are pretty much in accordance with their world ranking. The only major exception is Venus Williams who is ranked 31st in the world, but is seeded 24th.

Here's a list of ladies' singles seedings:

1. Belgium’s Justine Henin is seeded at the top. She's the world’s best player on clay, having four French Open titles as a proof. At the moment she is definitely in form, and therefore has high chances of completing a career slam. The only grand slam title she misses is one from Wimbledon, where she was a finalist in 2001 and 2006.

2. Russia’s Maria Sharapova considers the grass-court grand slam her favorite tournament and this year she is confident that she can repeat her 2004 success when she took the Wimbledon trophy. The 20-year-old Sharapova has been a semi-finalist since then.

"Grass definitely suits my game. With the power and the big first serve I feel I can get a good start on the point," she said.

Let me remind you that last week Sharapova reached the finals of the DFS Classic (played on grass), where she was defeated by Jelena Jankovic. Read more »

Highest-ranked Chinese female player Na Li will probably take part in the next week’s grand slam, even though she had to withdraw from Eastbourne, the ongoing Wimbledon warm-up event, because she had strained a muscle in her chest.

"She decided not play in Eastbourne this week to give her time to recover from the injury. She is unlikely to pull out of Wimbledon," said Xie Miqing, spokeswomen of the China Tennis Association.

Last year, world No. 18 Na Li reached the quarter-finals of Wimbledon which established her as the first Chinese to go that far in a grand slam. (source: Reuters)

World No. 19 Vera Zvonareva pulled out of Wimbledon on Monday after failing to recover from a left wrist injury which bothered her for months and forced her to miss the French Open.

The 23-year-old Russian has not played since retiring while trailing Dinara Safina in the semifinals of the Family Circle Cup in April.

Zvonareva will be replaced by Canada’s Aleksandra Wozniak who lost in the first round at the Australian Open and French Open this year.

Other players that have previously withdrawn from the grass-court grand slam are the 2004 French Open champion Anastasia Myskina, world No. 63 Zheng Jie and world No. 124 Romina Oprandi.

The Williams sisters, the 2000 and 2002 Wimbledon doubles champions, have been given a late wildcard into the doubles draw after Britain's Amanda Elliott and Katie O'Brien withdrew due to Elliott’s wrist injury. (via Reuters, Yahoo!Sports)

Despite withdrawing from the French Open as a precaution to avoid wrecking her grass court season, France's Tatiana Golovin still hasn’t recovered from her ankle injury and is likely to miss Wimbledon. World No. 17 has already pulled out of Birmingham, the Wimbledon warm-up event. (via Tatiana Golovin Fan Club)

After the 6-2 6-1 humiliation by Ana Ivanovic in the Roland Garros semifinal, world No. 2 Maria Sharapova turned her thoughts to her love affair with Wimbledon.

The 20-year-old Russian will warm-up for the third Slam of the year at next week's Birmingham Classic, a Tier III event she won in 2004 and 2005.

Maria, who said last week that she felt like a “cow on ice” on clay, now has something to look forward to:

"I'm excited. My favorite time of the year is coming up, the grass and the hard court season. So I'm very looking forward to it,"

"I love being part of Wimbledon. I can't even say how happy I am when this time of year comes around.

"I'm always thinking from the beginning of the year, 'I hope I'm always healthy when Wimbledon comes around because it's a very special place in my career, in my heart'.

"I always love going back there." (source: Reuters)