How to Read Tennis Draws
How to Read a Tennis Draw: Seeds, WC, Q, LL, PR and Alt Explained
A tennis draw sheet looks like a crowded bracket, but it follows simple rules. Once you know where the seeds sit and what the letters beside the names mean, you can follow any player from the first round to the final.
Seeds, sections and byes
The draw is split into sections. The top seed is placed on the top line of the draw and the second seed on the bottom line, so they can only meet in the final. Under ATP and WTA rules for qualifying draws, the first seed goes to the top of the first section, the second to the top of the second section, and so on; the remaining seeds are then drawn to the bottom lines of the sections so that each section has two.
When there are fewer players than lines, byes fill the gaps. A bye means a player goes straight into the second round without playing. Byes go to the highest seeds first, which is why the top players at a 28-player or 56-player event often start one round later than everyone else.
The abbreviations
| Mark | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 1, 2, 3… | Seed number |
| WC | Wild card, a place given by the tournament |
| Q | Qualifier, who won through qualifying |
| LL | Lucky loser, who lost in qualifying but replaced a withdrawn player |
| PR / SR | Protected or special ranking after a long absence |
| SE | Special exempt, for a player still competing the week before |
| Alt | Alternate, next in line from the entry list |
| ret. | The opponent retired during the match |
| w/o | Walkover: the opponent did not start the match |
Where there is a score, it is written from the winner's point of view: 6-4 3-6 7-6(5) means the winner took the first and third sets, and the number in brackets is the loser's points in the tiebreak.
Main draw and qualifying draw
Qualifying is a separate competition with its own draw, played in the days before the main event. When it ends, the successful qualifiers are drawn into the main draw, and under ATP rules the lucky losers are drawn in together with them. That is why the lines marked Q often stay empty on the first published main draw: the names are added once qualifying is over.
For the conventions at a particular event, the tournament's official draw PDF and the ATP, WTA or ITF rulebooks are the documents to check.
Rules, point tables and prize money are set by the tours and the ITF for each season. Check the official source named in the text before relying on a figure.
