The 21st century
Australia · born Detroit, Michigan, 2006 · right-handed · Eastbourne champion 2025
All playersBack to the rankings
4
Championship points saved in the 2025 Eastbourne final
19
Her age when she won Eastbourne, in the youngest final there by combined age since 1981
2
WTA singles titles, Rabat and Eastbourne, both in 2025
6-3, 6-7, 6-3
First-round win over Serena Williams on Centre Court, Wimbledon 2026
28
Career-high WTA singles ranking
Maya Joint was born in Michigan in 2006 to an Australian father, a former professional squash player, and started playing in kindergarten. She represented the United States as a junior and switched to Australia in 2023, training in Brisbane.
In 2024 she qualified for the US Open and beat Laura Siegemund in the first round while committed to the University of Texas, and had to forgo most of her prize money under college rules. She later turned professional. In 2025 she won her first two WTA titles, on clay at Rabat and on grass at Eastbourne, made her top-50 debut and finished the year at No. 32.
A back injury slowed her in 2026 and at one point she lost 10 matches in a row, but she reached a career-high No. 28, won doubles titles at Abu Dhabi and Monterrey and reached the singles final in Seoul. Her best-known win came at Wimbledon, where she beat Serena Williams in the first round.
| Eastbourne 2025 | Ranked 51, beat Ons Jabeur, Emma Raducanu, Anna Blinkova and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, then the qualifier Alexandra Eala 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 in 2 hours 26 minutes, saving four championship points and winning the deciding tiebreak 12-10. She was also runner-up in the doubles that week with Hsieh Su-wei |
|---|---|
| Wimbledon 2025 | Main-draw debut three days after Eastbourne; lost in the first round to Liudmila Samsonova |
| Wimbledon 2026 | Ranked 87, beat Serena Williams 6-3, 6-7, 6-3 on Centre Court in Williams' singles comeback at 44, sealing it on her third match point; then lost in the second round to Eala 3-6, 6-2, 6-0 |
| Eastbourne | ||
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Women's singles | |
Leading grass titles only: the grass majors, tour-level grass events since 1968 and the leading grass championships before 1968. †single source; ‡ sources disagree. Roll of champions
"I've been dreaming about this moment since I was a little kid, so this is pretty crazy."
The person behind the player.
Michigan, childhood
Joint started playing in kindergarten; her local playground was next to the tennis courts. Her father, Michael Joint, was a professional squash player, so they took squash racquets to hit on the tennis courts. She looks up to Roger Federer and Ash Barty, and has met Barty but not Federer.
Source: WTAUS Open, 2024
Reaching the second round as a qualifier should have earned her US$140,000, more than double her career earnings. Committed to studying psychology at the University of Texas, she could keep only US$10,000 a year in prize money under NCAA rules. "The whole thing is just very confusing," she told AAP.
Source: InDaily (AAP)Eastbourne, June 2025
Eala led 5-2 in the final-set tiebreak and had four championship points. Joint saved them all and won on her second. "I was on the back foot, I felt like, for most of the match," she said. "I just needed to try to find a way to get back into it."
Source: WTAWimbledon, June 2026
Before facing Serena Williams she hardly slept: "I was up until like 2 a.m. just thinking about it." In the warm-up she felt her legs "weren't moving". At 5-5 in the second set she missed four break points, then hit back-to-back aces to force the tiebreak.
Source: Associated Press, via KSLWimbledon, July 2026
Two days after the Williams match she met Eala for the first time since Eastbourne. Joint took the first set, then won only two more games as the Filipina reached the third round.
Source: The NationalFree membership: player news, the grass court Atlas, the rankings and the grass season calendar.
Join freePage updated 4 November 2026. Spotted an error? Send a correction.
_04_(cropped).jpg){kind=link}