Although Mary Pierce and Monica Seles are injured, Lindsay Davenport has just returned from a knee injury (having missed the French Open) and Anna Kournikova is on a slow recovery from a stress fracture, world number one Martina Hingis will hardly feel reassured.

Not only are a few credible Hingis opponents missing Wimbledon, but the eternal headline grabber, "only the balls should bounce" Kournikova, won't even be there to deflect the attention. Hingis has not won a Grand Slam since the Australian Open in 1999, and now even the Swiss 20-year-old is having doubts about her status as the best women's tennis player in the world.

"Maybe someone else should be the number one, I don't know," she mused during her failed bid at Roland Garros this year.

But in the Hingis mind, which is, in a tennis sense, stronger than most on the circuit, the new order of players will also vie for her attention. Absurd as it may seem that a fleet of teenagers in Justine Henin (19), Kim Clijsters (18) and Elena Dementieva (19) represent a new challenging group to Hingis, that is what she must now accept.

On the top side of the seed she has the "tour mature" Venus (2) and Serena Williams (5), Amelie Mauresmo (6), Davenport (3) and Australian and French Open winner Jennifer Capriati (4).

On the bottom side of the seed, "I think I could say Jennifer," said Hingis when asked who was currently the best player in the world. "I mean she's proved it. She's won Australia. She beat me there. She beat the sisters (Williams). Right now I'd say she's the most consistent, the hottest player on tour."

The Williamses departed France vexed, which is not unusual when both of them fail to win, but with Venus returning as the champion there is bound to be a greater focus. But she needs more guile and sharper form than she illustrated in France to defeat Capriati, Hingis or Davenport.

With four of the top five seeds American, the chances are that the trophy will end up returning across the Atlantic. But don't rule out Clijsters, Dokic or indeed Mauresmo, who collapsed in Paris because of local pressure.

That won't be a factor in London for the French number one.