In sports events, the elimination system is often used to shorten the competition time due to the large number of participants. When adopting this competition method, in order to prevent the high-level players from meeting in the preliminary round and being eliminated, they are distributed in different groups when grouping, and these players are called "seed players". Seed players are determined according to the performance of each player between the last competition and this competition. In the team-based competition, the above methods can also be used to determine that the top 16 players of the "seed" team are called seed players, and try to group them reasonably as far as possible so that these seed players and those from the same country will not meet prematurely in the competition; According to this principle, the top 8 seed players in doubles are also selected.

The original meaning of seed is seed, germination. (especially in tennis) Select (a seed player) to play against a weaker player (so that the seed player will not be eliminated prematurely).