BBC Sport at Wimbledon
Williams lost to top seed Vera Zvonareva at Eastbourne Defending champion Serena Williams survived a gruelling first-round encounter with Aravane Rezai to advance 6-3 3-6 6-1 at Wimbledon.Williams has not lost in the first round of her previous 44 Grand Slams, but was pushed hard in a 96-minute win.
Rezai, ranked 61st in the world, took the second set after going toe-to-toe with Williams' powerful groundstrokes.
But the Frenchwoman's momentum seeped away over the course of the decider as Williams swept to an emotional win.
"It has been a disaster year but I have been praying, I have my family and I love tennis, and to come back at Wimbledon and win is just awesome," said a tearful Williams told BBC Sport after the match.
She will face either Simona Halep and Bojana Jovanovski next.
World number 61 Rezai had led by a set and 5-2 in the pair's only previous meeting before slipping to defeat in 2010's Sydney International.
But she has endured a difficult start to 2011 securing only five wins in 12 tournaments after the removal of her controversial father from her team.
As her emotions after the match betrayed, Williams has also had a difficult year.
She spent almost 12 months out of the sport with a foot injury and a subsequent pulmonary embolism before her recent return at Eastbourne,
It was a more commonplace complaint - an eye irritation - that troubled the American as her serve was broken in a see-sawing first game.
Rezai played her part in establishing a surprise early lead with some energetic hitting from the baseline and a fortunate and decisive drop shot, but never looked secure in her brief time out in front.
As her serve cranked into gear, Serena held at her second attempt and broke back to level in the fourth.
After surrending her serve again in the sixth, Rezai was limited to occasional crowd-pleasing ripostes for the rest of the set in the face of Williams' onslaught.
The 24-year-old checked Williams' momentum as she held her serve after losing the previous five games, but could only briefly stall Williams with a winning return on the first of three set points.
Galvinised by the start of the new set, Rezai rediscovered a length of shot and power that had troubled Williams early on in the match.
Her scurrying and hustling built the pressure on Williams and the world number 25 cracked as her previously impregnable serve faltered to surrender the sixth game with a double fault.
This time Rezai retained her composure, her serve and the second-set lead and moved level as Williams accompanied a skewed forehand with a little scream on Rezai's second set point.
Despite her lengthy absence from the sport, it was Williams who came through the stronger in the final set.
After ominously holding her serve to love to move 2-1 up, she made the breakthrough in the next game before an emphatic break to love in the sixth sealed a fading Rezai's fate.
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