A working mum’s day

calm, just making my shots, just playing a more serene game.”

She emerged to a standing ovation after her year’s absence, wearing a striking white warm-up suit. Following her black catsuit at the French Open there was much speculation over what would come next but she peeled it away to reveal a relatively modest tennis dress.

Underneath she was wearing sheer tights – not as a fashion statement but as a compression mechanism to guard against blood clots after what was a difficult pregnancy. Williams had to fight hard to keep control in the first set, in which she was broken by an opponent who delivered more consistent ground strokes. The huge roar that the American let out at having held serve to move to 6-5 showed her anxiety.

But a fine return and a 111mph serve set up Williams to move to 15-40 on Rus’s serve and she closed out the set at the second time of asking.

The second set was equally demanding, with Williams broken again midway through but eventually, after much frustration, the 2016 champion put her opponent away.

Sister Venus survived a scare against Sweden’s Johanna Larsson to reach the second round as well. Larsson took a first-set tiebreak before Williams hit back to take the next two sets 6-2, 6-1. In contrast, the No 2 seed Caroline Wozniacki breezed through her opening match against Varvara Lepchenko 6-0, 6-3.

Top seed Simona Halep, meanwhile, starts her defence today on Centre Court against Japan’s Kurumi Nara.