"I don’t think it’s the right thing to do, just not fair" - When Serena Williams courted controversy from Dominika Cibulkova over Wimbledon seeding

Despite being ranked outside the top 150 at the time, Serena Williams was offered a seeding at the 2018 Wimbledon Championships, drawing the ire of fellow WTA player Dominika Cibulkova.

Williams was on her comeback trail after having given birth to her daughter Olympia the previous year. Ranked World No. 183 at the time, the American entered Wimbledon with a Protected Ranking. However, the tournament authorities took it upon themselves to offer her a seeding, allotting her the No. 25 spot.

This did have consequences for World No. 32 Cibulkova, who was pushed out of the seedings due to Williams' promotion. The Slovak was incensed with the decision and called out Wimbledon for not doing the right thing. Cibulkova felt she had earned her spot and therefore deserved to be seeded over the 23-time Grand Slam champion.

“I don’t think it’s the right thing to do. I think it’s just not fair. I have tried and I should be seeded. If they put her in front of me then I will lose my spot that I am supposed to have,” Cibulkova said to the press.

Unseeded, Dominika Cibulkova turned out to have a good run at SW19 regardless, beating 22nd seed Johanna Konta (second round), 15th seed Elise Mertens (third round) and Hsieh Su-Wei (fourth round) to reach the quarterfinals.

When asked about the seeding controversy after her fourth-round clash, Cibulkova declined to expand on it further, stating that she was over the matter and that she did not want to talk about it anymore.

"I'm not going to comment this any more. This question I've been asked so many times this week, last week. I just don't want to talk about it any more, about the seeding thing. It's over. It was over one week ago for me, so I don't want to talk about it any more," she said at her press conference.

Cibulkova eventually lost in the quarterfinals, falling to 12th seed Jelena Ostapenko. Serena Williams, on the other hand, reached as far as the final before falling to 11th seed Angelique Kerber.

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"I would be very ungrateful if I sat here and said it was too low, to be honest" - Serena Williams on her No. 25 seed at Wimbledon 2018

Day Eight: The Championships - Wimbledon 2018

Serena Williams herself spoke about the unexpected seeding she had been given at the 2018 Wimbledon Championships, joking that it would be very ungrateful of her to complain that it was too low.

The American icon thanked the tournament for the "noble" and "cool" gesture and added that she was pleasantly surprised when she learned about the decision.

"I think I would be very ungrateful if I sat here and said it was too low, to be honest. So not at all. I don't at all feel that way. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised. I came in here expecting that maybe I wouldn't get a seed. I do know Wimbledon tends to kind of beat to their own drum. That's kind of one thing that's been able to set them apart," Serena Williams said.

"It was a little bit in the back of my mind, that I would have a chance, but I didn't put that on it. You know, I'm here to do the best that I can do. I thought it was very, very noble and honest and cool. Maybe not honest, but cool (smiling). I don't know where 'honest' came from," she added.

Since 2021, Wimbledon has changed the seeding system, and now allot the top 32 spots to players based solely on the ATP and WTA rankings.