( CNN ) -- Serena Williams has been beaten in her comeback event in Eastbourne , losing a tight three-set second round match to top seed Vera Zvonareva on Wednesday . American Williams has not played in a competitive tournament since defeating Zvonareva in the Wimbledon final a year ago . However , the Russian claimed some revenge for that loss , recovering from dropping the opening set to secure a 3-6 7-6 7-5 triumph after three hours of intense tennis . Murray unlikely to win Wimbledon despite recent success . Zvonareva , who has been seeded second for Wimbledon next week , paid tribute to Wiliams after the match , telling the official WTA Tour website : `` Serena has done an unbelievable job coming back after almost a year of not playing . `` She spent more than three hours on the court playing some unbelievable tennis . She 's a great champion and I have a lot of respect for her . '' Williams was appearing in Eastbourne for the first time after two operations on a foot she cut on broken glass in a restaurant , followed by further surgery in February to remove blood clots from her lungs . Meanwhile , older sister Venus kept the Williams flag flying high on England 's south coast , reaching the quarterfinals with a comfortable straight sets win over Ana Ivanovic . Venus , who has been out of action for five months with an abdominal injury , went through 6-3 6-2 and told the WTA Tour website : `` I was happy to have some clean service games and not a lot of errors . `` I feel I 'm playing well on the big points -- these matches have been crucial for me to get back , literally , into the swing of things . '' In other matches , third seed Victoria Azarenka beat the final British player , Elena Baltacha , 6-1 7-6 , while Czech fifth seed Petra Kvitova saw off defending champion Ekaterina Makarova 7-6 7-6 . In the men 's draw , Bulgarian Gregor Dimitrov upset South African sixth seed Kevin Anderson 6-3 6-2 , while third seed Janko Tipsarevic beat British number two Jamie Ward -- who reached the semifinals at Queen 's Club last week -- 6-3 4-6 6-2 . Top seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga , from France , who was betean in the final at Queen 's by Andy Murray , lost 6-2 6-3 to Czech Radek Stepanek . Meanwhile , American Sam Querrey , who won at Queen 's in 2010 , has been forced to withdraw from Wimbledon due to an arm injury .
Serena Williams beaten by Vera Zvonareva in the second round at Eastbourne . The American was forced to retire after just two games of her third-round match against a player ranked outside the top 100 for only the third time this year. Venus Williams reaches quarterfinals with straight sets win over Ana Ivanovic . Top seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga beaten by Czech Radek Stepanek .