Serena Williams (USA) v Maya Joint (AUS) <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782473590_213_download.-1..jpeg\")
(AP)<\/p>\n
Who is Maya Joint? <\/p>\n
The 20-year-old Australian is currently ranked 87th in the world, with a career-high ranking of 28, but has lost has last 11 tour-level matches. A former champion on grass at Eastbourne last year, Joint is making just her second appearance at Wimbledon having yet to make it past the first round, while she has only reached the second round of a grand slam on one occasion. Born in 2006, when Williams was already a seven-time grand slam champion. The American won a further 16 grand slam titles in her lifetime.<\/p>\n
![\"Maya](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Maya-Joint-3wzuo6qq.jpeg\")
Maya Joint won the Eastbourne title in 2025 but has lost 11 matches in a row (Getty Images for LTA)<\/p>\n
What has Serena Williams said ahead of her singles return? <\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it\u2019s not every day Wimbledon holds a wild card for someone. I can name probably like a handful of people. I happened to be one of those people. I thought I should really take this opportunity. Who knows if I’ll ever make it here again. This could be it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like, What’s wrong with me, Serena? What are you thinking? Are you nuts? Like you really should do this. People live to be an athlete. I have this great opportunity to showcase what I do, what I do best. I was like that is pretty cool, so I should do it.<\/p>\n
When is Serena Williams playing doubles at Wimbledon with Venus? <\/p>\n
The Williams sisters last played doubles together at the 2022 US Open. Venus Williams, who is 46, plays sporadically but still sometimes accepts wildcards into grand slams. <\/p>\n
Together, Serena and Venus have won six Wimbledon doubles titles, a record they share with Suzanne Lenglen and Elizabeth Ryan, and their last title came in 2016. <\/p>\n
With a combined age of 90, the Williams sisters will play their first-round doubles match on either Thursday 2 July or Friday 3 July at the start of the women\u2019s doubles tournament. <\/p>\n
The Williams sisters will play the unseeded South American pair Camila Osorio and Solana Sierra in the first round. Osorio, from Colombia, and Sierra, from Argentina, will be playing as a duo for the first time. <\/p>\n
Serena Williams\u2019 comeback so far <\/p>\n
When asked during an appearance at the Berlin Open whether she would have been interested in the last remaining Wimbledon wildcard earlier this month, Williams sounded coy. <\/p>\n
\u201cOh my gosh, there\u2019s some left?\u201d she asked. \u201cWell I better get to practice! You think I\u2019m ready for singles? I need to get to work.\u201d <\/p>\n
Williams made her long-awaited return to tennis for the first time since 2022 when she played doubles with Victoria Mboko at Queen\u2019s in London. <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781180831_57_download...jpeg\")
(AP)<\/p>\n
The pair won their first-round match against third seeds Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe, but injury for Mboko prevented a second. <\/p>\n
The Canadian teenager slipped on the grass during her singles match the following day, suffering a left knee injury that forced her to withdraw from Wimbledon. <\/p>\n
Williams then headed to Berlin and played a further doubles match with Karolina Muchova, but they lost to Giuliana Olmos and Routliffe in the first round. <\/p>\n
She has been practicing at Wimbledon since the beginning of the week, with two doubles matches under her belt before facing Maya Joint in her first singles match in four years. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[607,9800,459,1122,602,9801,4567,366,596,613,603,341,609,1862,5762,9803,113,9802,28,578,2523,285,611],"class_list":["post-28163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wimbledon","tag-all-england-lawn-tennis-and-croquet-club","tag-arrival","tag-australia","tag-color-image","tag-england","tag-five-people","tag-full-length","tag-grand-slam","tag-horizontal","tag-international-tennis-federation","tag-london-england","tag-people","tag-photography","tag-practice-round","tag-rennae-stubbs","tag-serena-williams-tennis-player","tag-sport","tag-sports-team","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-usa","tag-wimbledon","tag-wimbledon-lawn-tennis-championships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}