Injuries to Alex Corretja and Thomas Enqvist have presented Tim Henman with a gilt-edged chance to have his best Australian Open championship.

Henman, who has never gone beyond the fourth round in five previous visits to Melbourne, moves up to become the No 8 seed for the opening Grand Slam event of the year starting on Monday.

The seedings announced yesterday were determined solely by the world rankings, and that means the tenth-ranked Henman has no chance of meeting any of the players ahead of him until the quarter-finals.

The Oxford 26-year-old's best Australian Open was last year, but it still ended in bitter disappointment when he suffered a five-set defeat to unseeded American Chris Woodruff in round four.

History is made with Gustavo Kuerten becoming the first Brazilian to be No 1 seed at a Grand Slam.

Kuerten reached world No 1 at the end of last year and is now seeded to play US Open champion Marat Safin in the final, although the Russian is struggling with an elbow injury.

Wimbledon champion Pete Sampras, chasing a record 14th Grand Slam title, is the third seed; Swede Magnus Norman is fourth, Russian Yefgeny Kafelnikov fifth, defending champion Andre Agassi sixth and Australian Lleyton Hewitt seventh.

Martina Hingis, defending champion Lindsay Davenport and Venus Williams head the women's seedings.

The draw today will also feature Greg Rusedski, who has fallen to 73rd in the rankings and Britain's highest-ranked woman Louise Latimer.

The 22-year-old from Norwich is currently ranked a career-best 110th and squeezed into the main draw without the need to go through the qualifying tournament.

Maidenhead-based Jamie Delgado and Worthing's Martin Lee survived the first round of that yesterday.

Delgado won 8-6 in the deciding set against Australian Peter Luczak and Lee won 6-2 7-5 against Dutchman Roger Wassen.

But there were defeats for Arvind Parmar, Barry Cowan, Lucie Ahl and Lorna Woodroffe.

Kelly Liggan beat Australian Kriston Van Elden 7-6 6-3, but Irish colleague Scott Barron lost.