As a winner of two ITF skilled singles titles to this point in 2024, 17-year-old Maya Joint is proving one to look at.
Australia, 19 March 2024 | Leigh Rogers
At 17 years previous, Maya Joint is already making a serious influence on the professional tour.
The promising Australian has received two ITF singles titles and halved her rating within the opening months of the 2024 season.
Joint, who trains at Tennis Australia’s Nationwide Tennis Academy in Brisbane, completed 2023 ranked world No.773.
She started her 2024 season at a WTA 125 event in Canberra, the place as a wildcard entry she shocked former world No.5 Sara Errani within the opening spherical and went onto attain the quarterfinals.
Joint additionally made probably the most of a wildcard into the Australian Open 2024 qualifying competitors, the place she superior to the ultimate spherical and prolonged eventual semifinalist Dayana Yastremska to 3 units.
Throughout these two occasions, she tallied 4 wins towards top-200 gamers.
Joint additionally progressed to the third spherical within the women’ singles competitors at Melbourne Park, the place she misplaced to the eventual champion.
The 17-year-old then produced a powerful run at an ITF 75 event at Burnie in February, defeating 5 higher-ranked opponents to scoop her first Australian Professional Tour singles title.
With this effort, Joint turned the primary Australian teen to win a title at this degree and skyrocketed into the world’s high 400.
One other milestone was achieved in late February, with Joint progressing to her first WTA doubles quarterfinal as a wildcard within the American metropolis of Austin (partnering Ukrainian Sabina Zeynalova).
She has spent the previous fortnight competing at ITF tournaments within the Dominican Republic, the place she received seven of her eight singles matches. This included a title-winning run this week.
This sees Joint joins unique firm as simply the sixth girl representing Australia to win a number of singles titles at ITF 25 degree or increased earlier than her 18th birthday.
| Singles titles (ITF 25 or increased) received earlier than turning 18 |
|
| Participant | Titles |
| Ash Barty | 4 |
| Destanee Aiava | 3 |
| Taylah Preston | 3 |
| Alicia Molik | 2 |
| Jessica Moore | 2 |
| Maya Joint | 2 |
As she edges nearer to breaking into the world’s high 300, Joint believes taking part in with “no stress” is the key to her success.
“I’m simply attempting to play my recreation,” mentioned the world No.324, whose season file on the skilled tour now stands at 18 wins from 23 matches.
“I simply go on the market and see what I can do.”
Joint, who achieved a career-best junior rating of world No.20 in January, has thrived since relocating to Australia in mid-2023.
She grew up within the American state of Michigan and switched allegiance to Australia, the start place of her father, final 12 months.
“I’ve improved so much previously few months,” Joint mentioned. “Since I’ve come to Australia, it’s simply been so good. The whole lot in my recreation has gotten higher.
“Coaching with among the high Australian girls’s gamers in Brisbane has been superb. I didn’t have these alternatives again in Michigan.”
Joint revealed in January she has been accepted into the College of Texas, the place she plans to check psychology and criminology.
“I’ll positively play some extra professional occasions, however my plan remains to be to go to varsity in August,” she mentioned of her 2024 targets.
“I’m actually curious about psychology, simply due to the thoughts side of tennis and seeing what I can do higher, and I’ve watched so many crime exhibits and I hearken to true-crime podcasts, so I discover criminology so intriguing.”
Enjoying skilled tennis stays her long-term aim, noting “my dream has at all times been to play within the Grand Slams”.
Discover your solution to play: Go to play.tennis.com.au to get out on court docket and have some enjoyable!