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Williams was granted a wildcard for the event in Germany ahead of teaming up with her sister Serena to play doubles at Wimbledon, with the younger Williams sister also set to make a singles return at SW19.

The elder Williams was serving for the match at 5-3 up in the deciding set against Begu, only for the Romanian to convert her third break point of a tense game and keep the contest going.

It stayed on serve from that moment on, with a breaker required, and neither player went more than two points up at any stage.

However, after wasting two match points, Begu made it third time lucky to tee up a second-round meeting with fourth seed Karolina Muchova.