Williams rolls back years before youth of Joint overcomes veteran on Centre Court

Hello and welcome to coverage from Wimbledon for a match which didn’t look likely one month ago. Serena Williams will shortly be walking onto Centre Court for her first grand slam singles match in nearly four years when she plays Australia’s Maya Joint for a place in the second round. The All England Club handed the 23-time grand slam winner a wild card into the singles and doubles, where she will play with sister Venus. The last time Williams played at Wimbledon, she lost in the first round to Harmony Tan in 2022, also as a wild card, and last won a singles match at Wimbledon in 2019 when she was runner-up to Simona Halep. “In general, my expectations are definitely different for the first time in my career,” she told reporters on Sunday. “I feel like my feelings are just — not that I never enjoyed it before, or else I wouldn’t be here today — but I feel like I’m really going to enjoy being out there.” Despite her long absence from the sport, Williams will have cause for belief against 20-year-old Joint, who has had a dismal year on the WTA Tour, losing 15 of the 18 singles matches she has played in 2026. She only has two doubles matches under her belt since announcing her comeback last month, winning one at Queen’s Club and losing the other in Berlin, but has enjoyed plenty of time on the practice courts in SW19. “I can’t say I had a lot of emotions, only because I think I was in Queen’s earlier and I was in London and I was on the grass,” she said. “So for here, it was more like, OK, I’ve been doing this for a couple of weeks. It was kind of like riding a bike. I didn’t feel a ton of stuff yet. Obviously when I play, I might have a lot of things come up.”