Six of the world’s top 10 women, including last year’s Wimbledon champion, Petra Kvitova, will be battling it out at Eastbourne this week determined to ensure they are in peak condition for the beginning of Wimbledon next Monday, even if the overwhelming favourite for the third grand slam championship of the year, Serena Williams, has again decided against competing on the south coast.

Williams has not played a Wimbledon warm-up tournament since 2011 – when, as a wild card, she was knocked out in the second round at Eastbourne by Vera Zvonareva. While the conversion from clay to grass is widely considered the most onerous, Williams has taken to resting before arriving at SW19 instead of adapting to the conditions. She turned down several invitations this year in favour of a return home to Florida after her French Open win and has not been seen on a grass court since leaving No1 Court at Wimbledon last year midway through a doubles match where she had served four consecutive double faults because of a virus. Williams was also poorly during her win at the French Open earlier this month, suffering from a severe bout of flu in the final days.

The No1 seed at Eastbourne, Kvitova has a bye into the second round and says the tournament is the “perfect warm-up for Wimbledon”. She was forced to withdraw during her quarter-final against Heather Watson last year because of injury and her preparations this time have not been ideal. The 25-year-old was knocked out of the French Open in the fourth round having taken six weeks off earlier in the season, citing exhaustion when pulling out of Indian Wells in early March despite having played only 15 matches.

The reigning champion, Madison Keys, who beat Watson in the semi-final 12 months ago en route to her first and only title, will face the winner of the match between Mona Barthel and Belinda Bencic in the second round, while Caroline Wozniacki begins her transition to grass following a break in Monaco after the French Open and will meet a qualifier in the second round. The No2 seed won this event in 2009 and has reached the semi-finals in her past two appearances at Devonshire Park.

Meanwhile, Great Britain’s Johanna Konta scored an upset in her first round match at Eastbourne, defeating Zarina Diyas in straight sets.

Konta, the British No2, beat her Kazakh opponent 6-3, 6-2 to make good on her wildcard and overturn a ranking difference in 105 places against the world No34.

Lucie Safarova, who was beaten by Williams in three sets in the final at Roland Garros, will face Harriet Dart or the 2014 Australian Open finalist Dominika Cibulkova in the second round. Cibulkova has not played since February after foot surgery and will be making her first appearance at Eastbourne.

Last year’s beaten finalist, Angelique Kerber, will also be present after claiming her first grass-court title at the Aegon Classic in Birmingham with a three-set win over Karolina Pliskova which took two and a quarter hours to close out. The German, seeded sixth at Eastbourne, lost the first set in a tie-break but won the second 6-3 before securing the title in a third-set tie-break having almost thrown it away from a 5-3 lead. Pliskova won three straight games but Kerber held her serve and won three consecutive points to take the tie-break 7-4. “This gives me a lot of confidence,” Kerber said. “My goal coming to Birmingham was to get a lot of matches and now I had my fifth of the week, so it couldn’t be better preparation before Wimbledon.”