Williams happy to be back on court

Serena Williams will begin the defence of her Wimbledon title on Tuesday just happy to be back on the lawns of the All England Club.

Things began to go wrong a few days after the 29-year-old's win over Vera Zvonareva in the final at SW19 12 months ago when she cut her foot on broken glass at a restaurant.What was initially thought to be a minor problem turned out to be anything but, requiring two operations and ruling her out for a number of months.

Williams' hopes of a return earlier this year were then scuppered by the discovery of blood clots on her lungs, which could have been life-threatening had she delayed receiving treatment. But the fit-again eighth seed said: "It would be awesome and amazing (to retain her title) but that's not my thought process. My thought process is just to play the best I can and to be positive. I'm happy to be here."

She added: "Six or seven weeks of just trying to get myself together isn't a tremendous amount of time but the fact that I can even compete and be in a position I wasn't sure I'd have a chance to be in again is more than enough."

Williams' only tournament since last year's Wimbledon came at Eastbourne last week, where she recovered from a slow start to beat Tsvetana Pironkova in round one before losing to Zvonareva.

The American was reasonably pleased with her game and especially happy to be able to compete without any problems with her lungs - although that did not stop mother Oracene worrying.

Williams said: "I didn't feel anything after a three-hour match. That was a blessing. Although I felt like the breaks were five seconds long. Every time I sat down, the umpire would call, 'Time.' But I felt like I was able to go through it.

"I was fine physically when I got off the court. My mom was so worried about me. I keep telling her I'm okay. She's like, 'If you feel anything, just stop. Come off the court.' I'm like, 'Mom, the doctor said I would be okay.'

"I talked to my doctor almost every day before I left and he said I'll be fine. I said, 'So can I pretend this never happened?' He said, 'Yeah, just pretend this never happened and you'll be fine.' I just had to get my lungs into better shape. I'm probably actually in better shape running-wise than I was before.

"There's some things that I want to work on and improve but I can't be upset at all about my game. It's fun. I feel like I'm young again. I have goals that I set for myself and goals that I want to achieve. It's good to have those goals to do."