The soft-spoken teenager ended the 2024 season with her first Grand Slam win at the US Open and on the brink of the top 100 after barely making the top 700 earlier that year.
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Joint’s progress was so rapid that she changed her mind about attending the University of Texas, but not before receiving a $210,000 bonus as part of the NCAA’s strict regulations for college athletes.
The decision was ingenious. Joint won maiden WTA singles titles in Eastbourne and Rabat last year to establish herself as a player to watch and a future star, doing so well that she is seeded for the Australian Open for the first time.
Joint is also the highest ranked Australian player at 32nd.
“I feel a little bit more pressure and expectations from other people, but it’s something I’ve worked really hard on,” she said. “I’m very proud of that and I think I’ve earned that spot.”
Joint celebrated Christmas with her Melbourne family for the third year in a row, knowing it would be the first Australian tennis summer where she would be a prominent figure.
More questions, more commitments and generally more attention. A British journalist asked her about sun protection and whether tours do enough to promote it, the kind of out-of-left-field question she’ll have to get used to.
Joint, who studies criminal justice at WTA University, is in a different world now, but it’s the pressure she puts on herself, rather than what she feels on the outside, that makes her work as much as anything else.
“When you’re around 700, there’s really no pressure,” she said.
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“You just go out there and play with no expectations and when you lose it doesn’t matter, whereas now it feels like it does. [That shifted] when I got into the top 100. You feel a little more pressure than you have to prove you’re at the level your rating says you are.”
Joint’s ranking and new status meant she joined top 10 star Alex de Minaur as Australia’s team leader at the United Cup after she also achieved her goal of representing the country in the Billie Jean King Cup last year.
An early bout of flu delayed the teenager’s start before she faced Grand Slam champions Iga Swiatek and Barbora Krejcik at the United Cup and then eventual titlist Mirra Andreeva in Adelaide.
It wasn’t that long ago that Joint felt like a cheat for even being in the same draw as these opponents, but now they’re trying to figure out a way to upset them.
Australia’s highest ranking men and women, Alex de Minaur and Maya Joint.Credit: Steven Siewert
“They are amazing players,” she said.
“I’ve got to work on my serve and that’s a big thing I’ve noticed playing good players. But I think it’s great to be able to play them, especially this early in the year, because then hopefully I’ll get another chance later in the year and see how I stack up against them.”
Joint’s parents will be among a large crowd of supporters, including her uncle, cousin and family friends, watching the 30th seed launch her campaign against Czech teenager Tereza Valentova.
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They are just as amazed as anyone at how quickly their daughter has taken off in the tennis world.
“We certainly didn’t expect it to be this fast,” Michael said. “To be deployed now, after two years, is unbelievable for us. We’re still pinching ourselves and couldn’t be prouder.”
Joint has goals on and off the court this year.
She wants to reach the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time — which could happen next week — and win her first WTA 500-level singles title, but she also plans to embrace her globe-trotting existence more.
“It’s an exciting feeling. [being seeded]especially since it’s my home event,” she said.
“The Australian fans did an amazing job of embracing me and supporting me. Even the first year I played the qualifiers, there were so many people there to support me.
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