Serena to face 20-year-old Aussie Maya Joint in Wimbledon opener - ESPN

LONDON — Serena Williams will face an opponent less than half her age when she plays 20-year-old Maya Joint of Australia in the first round at Wimbledon for her first singles match in nearly four years.

The seven-time Wimbledon singles champion, who is 44, accepted a wild-card entry to the grass-court Grand Slam, where she will also compete in doubles with her older sister Venus Williams, who turned 46 last week.

It's all part of a tennis comeback that started with two doubles warmup matches but kicked into high gear Sunday when the All England Club announced Serena Williams would play singles.

Joint was born in Michigan, as was Williams, but represents Australia through her father. She is ranked No. 53 and made her Wimbledon debut last year, losing in the first round to Liudmila Samsonova 6-3, 6-2.

«It's an honor. I always dreamed about playing Serena Williams,» Joint said. «If you told me 10 years ago that I'd be playing her first round at Wimbledon, that's just crazy.

»I hope it's on Centre Court, that would be pretty cool. You just have to play the ball. You can't really think about who you are playing because I'll just get too nervous. I'll just take it one ball at a time."

Joint won the grass-court Eastbourne Open last year for one of her two WTA tour-level singles titles, but she was slowed by a back injury earlier in 2026.

Williams hasn't played a singles match since a third-round loss to Ajla Tomljanovic at the 2022 US Open. At the time, she said she didn't want to use the word «retiring» and instead declared she was «evolving» away from tennis. Her second daughter was born in 2023.

Williams' most-recent appearance at Wimbledon was in 2022 when she lost in the opening round to then-115th-ranked Harmony Tan.

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