When the point was instead awarded to her opponent, Australian Samantha Stosur, Williams quickly went from serving for the match to fighting off match points in her season debut at the Sydney International on Sunday.
Williams seemed visibly upset by the chair umpire's mistake until a late rally to pull out a 6-3, 6-7 (4), 7-5 victory.
She was serving for the match at 6-5 and 30-30 in the second set when the umpire, Asitha Attigala of Sri Lanka, missed the let call. Stosur went on to break Williams and won the ensuing tiebreaker. Williams fought off four match points in the 10th game of the third set before breaking Stosur two games later to win the match.
She spoke to Attigala at the end of the game and second set, but didn't argue. At the end of the match, she shook his hand.
Williams acknowledged afterward the incident disrupted her game.
"I felt like I was going to win that second set,'' she said. "And then I hit a massive net cord and the guy didn't call it. Even Sam knew it was a net cord. It was frustrating at that point. These types of things seem to happen to me a lot.''
The heavily pro-Stosur crowd at the Olympic Park Tennis Centre - site of the 2000 Olympics tennis competition - loudly cheered every Stosur point. Williams received only smatters of appreciative applause even on her big points.
Williams said she was disappointed in her game, noting that she had missed a lot of easy shots and struggled with the strong wind at times.
"It was definitely tough conditions with the wind,'' Williams said. "With that being said, I just made so many errors, and that was a little frustrating because I feel like I've been working hard and to come out and perform at the level I did, I wasn't extremely happy.''
The last time the two played, Williams beat Stosur in straight sets at the Beijing Olympics in August, when Stosur won only two games.
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