Serena Williams will flex her muscles again on court, returning to tennis after a years absence to defend her title. Stepping on broken glass and a hematoma has kept Serena from battering down opponents on tour this year.

She will be joined by her sister and five time winner with Venus recovering from a hip injury that has kept her out of action since January. That signals bad news for the rest of the field, only twice in 11 years has there been a winner outside the family with an incredible five finals featuring both sisters.

One of those women was Maria Sharapova and with both sisters out of practice, the Russian is the bookies favourite at 9/2 (Boylesports). Serena is the fancied sister at 5/1 (Sportingbet) whilst Venus is next in line at 8/1 (Betfred).

Two others to look out for are the finalists at Eastbourne, Petra Kvitova and Marion Bartoli. Bartoli won the match and has been in good form this year with a surprising semi-final performance at her home slam last month in France. Grass is by far her best surface as her run to the 2007 final showed and trading at 29.0 on Betfair she could well cause an upset.

Twenty-one year old, Kvitova also feels comfortable on the surface demonstrated by her great run to the semi-finals last year where she battled valiantly against Serena. With both sisters not going into the tournament with much match practice the Czech who was unseeded last year is now fourth favourite at 9/1 ! (Skybet).

In the first round of matches on Tuesday, here are a few more to look out for.

Elena Baltacha v Mona Barthel (Baltacha to win, 1/2 at Betfred)

Baltacha has the home crowd on her side as well as a good run on grass so far this season, winning at Nottingham and winning in her first match at Eastbourne before losing out to number three seed, Azarenka.

This will be Barthels first grass tournament of the year as she preferred playing on a hard surface in Denmark in the build-up to the Championships. The German has never made it past the first round at Wimbledon, a record which looks set to continue against the in-form Baltacha.

Kristina Barrois v Petra Cetkovska (Cetkovska to win, 11/10 at Betfred)

Cetkovska was Baltachas opponent in the final at Nottingham with grass being her favoured surface. Barrois meanwhile only won one game in her last outing on the surface in the second round in Holland last week.

The German prefers the hard courts and although Cetkovska has never made it past the first round she has always been up against a superior opponent, this time she has a good chance of progression against Barrois with both players about the same rank and the Czech more comfortable on grass.

Zania Mirza v Virgine Razzano (Mirza to win, 8/13 at Betfred)

Razzano had lost in the first round three years running before 2009 where she made it to the last 16 but one walkover and one retired opponent deceives to flatter.

Mirza has reached the quarters in the last two years at Eastborune and has made it past the first round in four of six attempts at Wimbledon, always losing out to a better opponen! t; the I ndian is 36 places higher in the WTA rankings than Razzano who lost in her only match on grass earlier this month in Birmingham to Rodionova, ranked 233 in the world.