By Chris Oddo | Monday, June 29, 2015

Serena Williams found herself down a break and momentarily outshined by 20-year-old Russian Margarita Gasparyan, but the American found her center and rallied nicely for the 6-4, 6-1 win to book her place in the second round.

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Williams drew even with her sister Venus for the active lead in Wimbledon wins with 73, and set up a second-round encounter with Timea Babos of Romania.

The top seed and five-time Wimbledon champion dished out three aces and 19 winners, saving seven of eight break points.

When asked what made her happy about the match during an on-set interview, Williams couldn’t quite come up with anything. Finally, after some prodding by Evert she said “winning.”

It wasn’t vintage Serena, but it was more than adequate for a 22nd straight win at a major, despite the slow start which featured many unforced errors and some inspiring play from Gasparyan.

“I got off to a slow start again,” said Williams. “And I didn’t serve as well as I wanted to and I wasn’t as aggressive on my returns or in my ground stroke play, and I feel like my feet weren’t moving the way they should move.”

She added: “First round. Hopefully it was just nerves.”

Williams, bidding to become the first player since 1988 to win all four majors in a calendar year, is a seven-time Wimbledon finalist and owns a 73-10 lifetime record at the All England Club.

In other action on the women’s side, 7th-seeded Ana Ivanovic cruised past Yi-Fan Xu, 6-1, 6-1, and 23rd-seeded Victoria Azarenka cruised by Annett Kontaveit, 6-2, 6-1.

11th-seeded Karolina Pliskova, Kristina Mladenovic and CoCo Vandeweghe were also winners.