{"id":659140,"date":"2026-06-26T10:19:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/659140\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T10:19:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:19:14","slug":"wimbledon-2026-draw-serena-williams-to-face-maya-joint-in-first-round-while-jack-draper-plays-taylor-fritz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/659140\/","title":{"rendered":"Wimbledon 2026 draw: Serena Williams to face Maya Joint in first round, while Jack Draper plays Taylor Fritz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">During the 25-minute women&#8217;s draw ceremony at the All England Club, the wait for the appearance of one name &#8211; and its placing &#8211; brought a sense of anticipation like none of the other 127.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Williams popped up midway through the draw, in an intriguing section which also features Swiatek.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ever since 23-time singles Grand Slam champion Williams finally confirmed she was going to return to singles action, there was deep intrigue about what sort of challenge she would face.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">As a wildcard entry, Williams could have been drawn against one of the world&#8217;s leading players &#8211; such as top seed Aryna Sabalenka or Swiatek &#8211; or a lower-ranked player outside of the top 100 who had to fight their way through qualifying.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Facing 20-year-old Joint is a match which looks eminently winnable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Joint lost in the first round on her Wimbledon main-draw debut last year and has won just one of her past 14 matches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Williams is used to being the centre of attention wherever she goes and it will be no exception when she returns on Tuesday &#8211; presumably on Centre Court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If Williams comes through that match she could face 29th seed Alexandra Eala of the Philippines next, with the possibility of playing Swiatek in the third round.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During the 25-minute women&#8217;s draw ceremony at the All England Club, the wait for the appearance of one&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-659140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}