Wimbledon : 1st Match Almost Her Last : First round: Honor is nearly an upset, but Navratilova comes from behind in third set to beat Reinach.

As Martina Navratilova learned here Tuesday, the bad part about being queen of Wimbledon is that somebody keeps trying to knock your crown off.

There she was, the star of the first match of the 94th playing of the most important tennis tournament of them all. She was the defending champion, going after her 10th title and her 100th victory here. And she was also being accorded the rare honor of being first out on Centre Court, traditionally sacred ground for the defending men’s champion.

But when Monday’s Centre Court opening with Stefan Edberg was rained out, and the traditional Ladies’ Day Tuesday was kept intact, Navratilova was Wimbledon’s First Lady. Pomp and circumstance hung in the air. No defending women’s champion had ever lost in her first appearance the next year, and whether Navratilova was aware of that, she certainly was aware of the history and tradition she represented.

“I was just trying to drink in the fact this was the first time I was playing on the court, before the guys were on it, and there are no blemishes on there,” Navratilova said. “So I’m really looking around, enjoying myself.”

Then she had to play, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Elna Reinach of South Africa, No. 30 in the world and No. 1 in the hearts of TeamTennis fans in places such as Charlotte and San Antonio, came within a whisker of making some Wimbledon history of her own.

Reinach had Navratilova down in the third set, serving at 4-3 and 30-love, and ended up losing, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4. For Queen Martina, it was almost a royal choke.

“I was all over the place emotionally,” Navratilova said. “I was telling myself, ‘I’m really going to enjoy the occasion, defending champion this and that,’ and the next thing I know, I lose the first set. I’m in a battle.”

At 4-3 and 30-love, Navratilova’s battle was a tennis life-and-death struggle.

First, she returned well and Reinach dumped a forehand volley into the net, then she chipped and charged and volleyed a winning backhand down the line for 30-all.

And then she got lucky. Reinach hit a deep first serve that curved right into Navratilova’s body. The 34-year-old Navratilova fought off the serve just well enough to flick her racket at it about shoulder high, and the return ticked the top of the net and trickled over, stopping so dead on the other side that Reinach, closing in on the net, had no chance for a play.

So, suddenly, from 30-love, it had gone to break point, and when Navratilova forced Reinach deep on the next point and Reinach netted a sliced forehand from the baseline, Navratilova had escaped. It had been a job for a tennis Houdini, and now that the handcuffs were off, the veteran from Ft. Worth served a love game for 5-4 and broke Reinach for the match at 15-40.

From the 4-3, 30-love point, Navratilova had run off 10 of 11 points. And afterward, she gladly explained the reversal of fortune.

“I felt like I was in a final at the end,” she said. “My adrenaline was pumping big time. So that’s what it’s all about. I came up with the big shots when I had to, so I’m happy about that.”

At 22, Reinach was playing in her seventh Wimbledon. She was the top-ranked women’s player in South Africa in 1987-’89, has won a couple of doubles titles on the tour and distinguished herself, as it were, by becoming the most valuable player and rookie of the year in TeamTennis with Charlotte in 1987. Last year, she played for San Antonio.

None of that, of course, positioned her to be upsetting Martina Navratilova in the Wimbledon opener.

“I played well, but maybe when it was really important, I held back,” she said. “I’m disappointed because I had the chances and didn’t use them right. This was maybe my chance, but I got scared trying to go for it at the end.”

She also felt the atmosphere of tradition all around her.

“At the end, I thought, ‘Here I am on Centre Court for the first time,’ ” she said. “And she had so many matches on this court, so many titles. And I’m beating her. . . . “

As for Navratilova, she was both relieved and realistic about her close encounter of a different kind.

“I played poorly,” she said. “I just won it on emotion.”