Australians Maya Joint and Alexei Popyrin have enjoyed their return to New York a year after famous wins at the US Open.

The third round of last year’s tournament marked the biggest victory of Popyrin’s career, and he enjoyed his first match back at Flushing Meadows.

Popyrin kicked off his US Open with a 6-3, 6-4, 7-6(7/3) victory over Finland’s Emil Ruusuvuori.

Popyrin blasted 10 aces and 44 winners to see off the world number 752 in a tick over 2 hours, but will face a completely different test against top seed Jannik Sinner in the second round.

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It is the second year in a row that Popyrin has taken on the defending champion, after taking down Novak Djokovic during a run to the round of 16 in 2024, and he is not daunted by the prospect.

“If you want to win these tournaments, you have to beat one of these players at some point,” he said.

“But for me, because I don’t have a number in front of my name, it just comes a round earlier than it could have been.

“I know my game, I know how I can play and I know the trouble I can cause, so I’m not really worried about it.”

Popyrin actually has a lead in the head to head with Sinner — who brushed aside any concerns about the illness that derailed him in the Cincinnati Open final eight days ago to dispatch Czech world number 89 Vit Kopřiva 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 — having won their only clash at the clay court Madrid Masters in 2021.

Joint gets first major win for 2025Maya Joint celebrates winning by clenching her fist and shouting at the US Open.

Maya Joint fell in the first round of the three other majors this year. (Getty Images: Matthew Stockman)

Twelve months after winning on her grand slam debut, US-born Joint returned as the world number 43 and accounted for Victoria Jiménez Kasintseva 6-4, 7-6(8/6).

It continued Joint’s extraordinary 2025 success story, despite losing her previous three first-round matches at this year’s grand slams — the only negatives in a brilliant year for the 19-year-old Queensland-based player, featuring her first two WTA titles on clay in Morocco and grass at Eastbourne.

Joint was delighted to get past Kasintseva, exacting revenge after the Andorran took down Australians Astra Sharma and Emerson Jones in qualifying.

Joint has rocketed up the rankings since she started the 2024 season ranked 684th in the world, with her experienced Billie Jean King Cup teammate Ajla Tomljanović saying there was no ceiling on what she might achieve.

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She again demonstrated her temperament as world number 130 Kasintseva, another fine young talent at the age of just 20, put on the pressure in a 66-minute second set, twice earning set points at 5-3 and then again in the tiebreak at 6-5.

But Joint reeled off the last three points to seal the victory and set up a second-round clash with Wimbledon finalist and eighth-seeded American Amanda Anisimova, where Joint will again be trying to exact revenge for one of her compatriots after Anisimova wiped out Kim Birrell 6-3, 6-2.

Joint will be seeking to reach the third round of a slam for the first time in her fledgling career nearing the end of a season.

Tomljanović faces third seed Coco Gauff later today, while Alex de Minaur faces countryman Chris O’Connell, and Tristan Schoolkate is up against Italy’s Lorenzo Sonego.

ABC/AAP