Up to 13 million football fans watched the thrilling second half of Saturday's England Scotland match on television, unofficial figures revealed yesterday.
The average number of viewers for the match as a whole was about 11.5 million but this leapt by a million and a half as England scored twice and goalkeeper David Seaman saved a penalty.
WIMBLEDON'S seedings committee has ensured that a balanced draw for the men's singles will be made today, although not every ego is guaranteed to be satisfied.
The world number two Thomas Muster, a clay court specialist who has not won a match in four previous visits to the All England Club's lawns, the last of which was two years ago, is relegated to number seven.
This enables Goran Ivanisevic, twice a finalist, to be promoted to number four from his current ranking at number seven. The big serving Croat is placed behind Pete Sampras, Boris Becker and Andre Agassi in the seedings.
Muster rose to number one on the ATP Tour world rankings in February on the strength of a phenomenal 1995 on the clay courts, which included his first Grand Slam title at, the French Open, plus a surprising success on an indoor carpet court in Essen where he defeated Sampras.
Stefan Edberg, who is making his farewell appearance at Wimbledon as part of his retirement season, is elevated to number 12 from his ranking of number 20. This acknowledges the 30 year old Swede's improved form in recent weeks, and also recognises his contribution to the championships. The Swede contested three consecutive finals with Boris Becker, winning in 1988 and 1990.
On Sunday, Edberg was runner up to Becker in the Stella Artois Championships at the Queen's Club, London, defeating Muster in the semi finals. This followed Edberg's encouraging performance in Paris, where he advanced to the fourth round of the French Open.
Although the women's singles generally has been seeded according to the WTA Tour rankings, the committee made a distinction between Steffi Graf and Monica Seles, who have been co-ranked number one since Seles returned after recovering from her stabbing in 1993.
Graf the holder who is aiming for her seventh Wimbledon singles title, is seeded number one, and Seles, who is returning for the first time since losing to the German in the 1992 final, is second seed.
Little known Cornish teenager Simon Pender completed a British rout of America's Washington brothers as he reached the second round of the Wimbledon qualifying tournament at Roehampton yesterday.
While Tim Henman was humbling world number 19 Malivai at the Nottingham tournament, unranked Pender served up one of the best performances of his fledgling career to beat the youngest Washington brother, Mashiska, 6-3 6-4.
Pender (18), a protege of onetime Wimbledon hero Nick Brown, now plays Andrew Richardson in the second round. Richardson won 7-6 2-6 11-9 over Italian Vincenzo Santopadre.
