Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 7 May 2025 | Matt Trollope
This time last year, Maya Joint was outside the top 200 and playing matches on the ITF circuit.
Now, she’s a top-80 player competing regularly on the WTA Tour, having recently represented Australia at the Billie Jean King Cup, and soon to make her Roland Garros debut.
MORE: Big Aussie contingent set for Roland Garros
Already this year she has played before a full house at Pat Rafter Arena under lights against Victoria Azarenka in Brisbane, against top-five star Jessica Pegula on one of the Australian Open’s largest show courts at John Cain Arena, and several other big matches against top players.
It’s a meteoric rise that has left the teenager sightly stunned.
“It’s definitely a ‘this is ridiculous’ kind of moment, where I didn’t really feel like I was supposed to be there, kind of?” Joint said of the Azarenka match on this week’s episode of The Sit-Down, her first podcast interview.
“It just felt really weird, me being there. Or playing against Pegula on John Cain… walking out onto that court I felt, oh boy. I was like, ‘I’m not winning this match’. That’s what I was thinking.
“I’ve had to work a lot with my mental coach about just kind of playing those matches, because more of those matches have happened, where I’m playing, like, a name. And I just need to play the ball that’s coming at me, and not the person.
PODCAST: Maya Joint on The Sit-Down
“But it’s a very different experience to a couple of months ago, a year ago, so it’s just been a very crazy transition, but super exciting.
“It’s been so cool being able to walk out on the stages with all those people and play against those people, just people that I’ve watched on television and then realising, ‘oh, someone might be watching me on television, this is really weird’ (laughter).”
At the beginning of 2024 Joint was ranked 684th, before embarking on a season that saw her win more than 60 matches, capture two titles from four tournament finals and end the year at world No.119.
Aside from Naomi Osaka, no player rose more ranking places than Joint to end 2024 inside the top-200. But there was little celebration.
“We didn’t do anything,” Joint laughed. “I think when I got into the top 100 in Merida, we went and got ice-cream. But we do that anyway.
“We were aware of it [the ranking rise] but we didn’t really do anything. Maybe I didn’t quite believe it at the time, but it was just… it’s weird to celebrate something that, like, you’re not done yet.”
So what does it mean to be “done”?
“I mean I guess when you’re finished with tennis, or when you get to No.1, I guess then you’ve kind of done it. Then you can celebrate,” she replied.
“Any milestone in the top 100 is really special. Top 50, top 40, top 30, anything is just a crazy achievement. I think it’s important to celebrate when you do it, but not let it take focus away from… like, you’ve not reached the goal yet.”
During 2024, Joint faced five top-100 ranked players. In the first two months of 2025 alone, she had already faced 10 top-100 opponents.
Not only that, but she has beaten several of them, and quickly.
She routed No.4 seed Magda Linette – the Australian Open 2023 semifinalist – 6-1 6-1 to reach the quarterfinals in Hobart, where she allowed AO 2020 champion Sofia Kenin just four games.
REWIND: Rising Aussie star Maya Joint storms into Hobart semis
In Mexico, her 6-1 6-2 domination of 20th-ranked Donna Vekic sent her into the WTA 500 Merida quarterfinals, and into the top 100 herself.
“I’m not sure I can,” Joint laughed when asked if she could explain those one-sided scorelines.
“I mean, I played really, really well, those matches. Everything just kinda worked; I hit the ball where I wanted it to go, and it pretty much always went in, and those matches aren’t going to happen every day, unfortunately.
“I think I was just super excited to be in the place that I was at the time. I was in Hobart, which I’d never been to before, and it was such a beautiful setting with the mountains in the background and just playing in Australia with the crowd on my side. It was so amazing. And having the Australian Open ahead of me and just being really excited to go there after.
“Then I was in Merida, Mexico and again the crowd were on my side, it was wonderful. And I was really playing well and just enjoying what I was doing.
“I saw who I was playing before the match and I was like, ‘yeah, well, no pressure, see what happens’.”
In fact, Joint revealed that this was her mentality every time she faces a “name”.
“It’s a really fun experience to be out on the court and just see what I can do, pretty much,” she explained.
“It’s always exciting to go to a new place, because I had never been to any of those tournaments before, never played those level of tournaments before, so it’s just super exciting to realise that I am there, and that I am playing them.
“It’s just so fun to be able to play against those kinds of people and have those high-level matches.”
Listen to the full episode of The Sit-Down, a weekly podcast released each Monday featuring an in-depth interview with a notable tennis identity. Subscribe to The Sit-Down in your favourite podcast player.
