LONDON — Tennis great Serena Williams will face an opponent less than half her age when she plays 20-year-old Maya Joint 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’ll also compete in doubles with her older sister Venus, who turned 46 last week.
It’s all part of a tennis comeback that started with two doubles warmup matches earlier this month but kicked into high gear last Sunday when the All England Club announced the American star would play singles. Brackets were set in Friday’s draw. Main-draw play begins Monday.
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 tournament 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 U.S. 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.
Tomljanovic said she hopes Joint “enjoys the moment.”
“Especially after (Williams) officially retired four years ago, no one thought that they’d get another chance to play her,” Tomljanovic, an Australian, said Friday at Wimbledon.
Williams is “here to win,” Tomljanovic added.
“You never lose that champion mentality. Her coming into the draw means that she thinks she can win,” she said.
Williams’ most recent appearance at Wimbledon was in 2022, when she lost in the opening round to Harmony Tan, who was No. 115 in the WTA singles rankings at the time.
If she beats Joint on Tuesday, Williams may face rising Filipino star Alexandra Eala, who is seeded 29th, in the second round. She could meet reigning Wimbledon champion Iga Swiatek in the third round.
Swiatek opens against Taylor Townsend of the U.S. on Centre Court on Tuesday.
In a projected quarterfinals by seedings, No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka would meet French Open champion Mirra Andreeva; No. 2 Elena Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon champion, would face 2025 runner-up Amanda Anisimova; Swiatek, the No. 3 seed, would play Elina Svitolina; and No. 4 Jessica Pegula would meet Coco Gauff.
On the men’s side, No. 1 Jannik Sinner will begin his bid to repeat as Wimbledon champion against Miomir Kecmanovic on Centre Court on Monday.
Sinner and 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic, the No. 7 seed, are in the same half of the draw and could meet in the semifinals.
Sinner underwent checks after his French Open meltdown — he lost in the second round amid a heat wave in Paris — and said he felt physically good after an exhibition match this week in London, which also experienced high temperatures.
Djokovic, a seven-time champion at the All England Club, will play Wu Yibing. Djokovic could meet third-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime in the quarterfinals.
Two-time champion Carlos Alcaraz, who lost to Sinner in the 2025 final, will miss this year’s tournament because of a wrist injury that also forced him to miss the French Open.
The Williams sisters are wild-card entries in the women’s doubles and will play their first-round match against Camila Osorio of Colombia and Solana Sierra of Argentina.
Serena and Venus have won 14 Grand Slam titles together in doubles, including six at Wimbledon — the first in 2000 and the last in 2016. Their first two doubles titles at the All England Club, in 2000 and 2002, came as wild cards.