Note: Throughout December, wtatennis.com will be running a series of interviews with players who are poised to make a mark in 2026 after impressive comebacks or breakthroughs in 2025.
At her Australian Open pre-event press conference last year, Maya Joint shared two goals for 2025.
First, crack the top 100. Second, play the main draw at all Grand Slams — a check mark next to both.
In her first full season on the WTA Tour, Joint transcended her expectations. Reaching a career-high rank of No. 32, becoming the Australian No. 1, playing the main draw at all Grand Slams and winning two singles WTA 250 titles propelled the the 19-year-old beyond her own objectives. Ahead of 2026, she’s eyeing another momentous season.
“I definitely didn’t expect to end up this high in the rankings,” Joint told wtatennis.com from Brisbane. “It’s definitely a pleasant surprise. Just the way that my season was going, I was playing some really good tennis and just having consistently good results on all surfaces.
“I definitely didn’t think I was going to get to 32. Didn’t think I would end the season as the No. 1 Aussie, that’s for sure.”
From Detroit to Down Under
Joint’s ascent stems from a 2023 decision to relocate from outside of Detroit, Michigan, to Brisbane, Australia. She visited Australia just once prior when she was a baby, so the move felt like the first time she had set foot Down Under, Joint said.
“It’s interesting because it feels like I just got here,” said Joint, whose father is Australian. “I’ve had such an amazing team around me, and Tennis Australia really embraced me, all the girls, all the fans, they really made me feel at home. I just felt like I belonged.”
Joint made the move to Tennis Australia without a permanent coach. There was a period where Joint and her mother would go hit on the court to practice, and when traveling for tournaments, Joint said she occasionally borrowed coaches from other junior players.
Then came Chris Mahony.
Mahony, now Joint’s full-time coach, wasn’t originally in a coaching position at Tennis Australia when Joint first arrived. Joint said he was doing administrative work but was “high up” on the Tennis Australia ladder. Tennis Australia assigned Mahony to Joint, and the partnership has flourished.
“He fixed everything, fixed my technique, my serve, movement,” Joint said of Mahony, who won Tennis Australia’s Coaching Excellence — Performance award for 2025. “He works really well on the psychological part of the game. He’s just so knowledgeable and calm.”
Joint, who was Tennis Australia’s Junior Female Athlete of the Year alongside Emerson Jones in 2024, was nominated this year for the prestigious Newcombe Medal, given to Australia’s best tennis player male or female.
Adjusting to a new level
Entering 2025, Joint’s No. 116 ranking was an enormous leap from her 2023 year-end rank of No. 773. She played primarily on the ITF circuit in 2024 but made WTA 125 quarterfinal and semifinal runs at Canberra and Warsaw, respectively. Plus, she won her first-round match against Laura Siegemund at the 2024 US Open after a successful qualifying run.
She reached the semifinals in Hobart to begin 2025 strong, taking down three top 100 players in Olga Danilovic, Magda Linette and 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin.
Earning a wild card for the 2025 Australian Open, Joint faced Jessica Pegula in the first round. Despite defeat, the match foreshadowed all of the top talent she’d eventually face this past season, including Iga Swiatek, Amanda Anisimova, Emma Raducanu and more.
Maya Joint addressed the media ahead of the 2025 Australian Open. In her press conference, she stated her goals for the 2025 season including breaking into the top 100 and playing the main draw at all four Grand Slams. (Jimmie48/WTA)
“I’ve gotten more used to the top level of players,” Joint said. “I’ve just played a lot more of them this year than I did last year. I think it’s going to be exciting to have a second year on tour where I’m going to mostly places that I’ve already been to, so it’s less new and scary in getting to find your way around. I think it’ll be good.”
Two titles in two months
The pinnacle of Joint’s season came in May and June when she won her first two WTA 250 titles, in Rabat and Eastbourne.
Joint said she remembered seeing the initial draw for Rabat and felt she had a favorable chance to win. Her previous best finishes at WTA 250 events or higher were the quarterfinals in Merida in March, a 500 event, and the semifinals in Hobart in January, a 250.
She dominated the field, winning all her matches in straight sets aside from her semifinal match against fellow Australian Ajla Tomljanovic, who retired in the second set.
The point that mattered most came in the final, when Jaqueline Cristian’s forehand return went long. Joint, in disbelief, collapsed onto the clay court in jubilation, celebrating not just her 6-3, 6-2 win, but also the pivotal first tour-level title.
“It was a lot of disbelief,” said Joint, who also won the doubles title in Rabat. “I was just surprised that I did that. I really wanted to win that one. It was just wild.”
The victory in the Moroccan capital served as the prologue to what Joint would accomplish next month on the Eastbourne grass courts.
Joint said she felt the Eastbourne draw was much stronger than Rabat. In her first-round match, she defeated former World No. 2 Ons Jabeur 7-5, 6-2, before withstanding 2021 US Open champion Raducanu 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (4) in the second round.
Following wins over Anna Blinkova and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Joint advanced to the final against rising star Alexandra Eala, who proved to be Joint’s toughest test. They would need a third-set tiebreak to settle the championship.
Incredibly, Joint saved four championship points in the tiebreak to win 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (10), earning her second title in as many months.
“The Eastbourne title definitely boosted my confidence more,” Joint said. “I had some pretty close matches that I had to fight through. Every single match was difficult, and it was on grass, which was the surface that I had convinced myself I didn’t like.
“I kind of blacked out in that last tiebreak. I don’t know what happened.”
With the win in England’s south coast, Joint cracked the top 50, continuing her steady climb heading into the hard-court swing. She closed out 2025 with semifinal finishes in Seoul and Hong Kong in the Asian swing, eclipsing Daria Kasatkina as the Australian No. 1 in late October with her No. 32 ranking.
The mental shift
This December, Joint returned to Brisbane for offseason preparations following two weeks off in Melbourne with her parents. She trains six days a week — with Wednesday and Saturdays as half days — that includes a mixture of on-court, fitness and conditioning sessions.
Joint said she felt her serve’s pace improved in 2025, though she pointed to some tournaments earlier in the season where she had a lot of double faults. It’s something that’s been an emphasis this offseason.
“I’m trying to transition to the net more,” she said,” and trying to transition to being a bit more of an all-court player, and then working on my slice and just couple different variations to my game.”
She’s also worked closely this offseason with Tennis Australia’s sports psychologist Michael Lloyd. Alongside her team, Joint and Lloyd will review cognitive strategies to handle situations such as when Joint is up a break and holding that next service game or approaching a match where she might be the presumed favorite given her ranking.
“It’s just focusing on playing the person on the other side of the net, and not really the number or what rank they are,” Joint said. “Everyone on the WTA Tour can play tennis, and the ranking doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. I just need to shift my focus a little bit and focus less on rankings.”
And now …
Entering her second full year on tour with her current rank, Joint can directly enter more higher-level tournaments. She’s excited about the upcoming Australian swing and going to the Middle East, which will be a new swing for her.
Joint opens her 2026 season at the United Cup, where Australia will compete in Group D in Sydney at the mixed-team event. She’ll face Czechia’s Barbora Krejcikova and Norway’s Malene Helgo in singles matches.
“It’s a really fun event to start the season off with,” Joint said. “I also think it’s a lot of pressure, just because team events are always different. When you’re playing for your country, you feel a different type of pressure.
“It’ll be an interesting situation. I’ll be nervous because it’s a team. Then I’ll be nervous because the first match of the season. It’ll be a super fun event, which will just set a really good tone for the rest of the year.”
Entering her home swing, Joint stated three main goals for 2026:
First, she’d like to win a WTA 500 event. Second, she wants to advance to the fourth round of a WTA 1000. Lastly, she wants to reach the third round of a Grand Slam.
Joint manifested her own objectives a year ago. The goals are loftier now, but certainly attainable. Can she transcend once again in 2026?