Joint Pain For Serena Williams In First-Round Wimbledon Exit

by Bob Stockton

Centre Court fell silent for just a moment before erupting. Serena Williams, 44 years old, seven Wimbledon titles to her name, walked onto the most famous tennis court in the world for the first time in singles competition in nearly four years — and the crowd simply could not contain itself.

It was the kind of entrance only legends get.

But sport, as ever, is indifferent to sentiment. When the final point was played Tuesday evening at the All England Club, it was not Williams accepting the roar of victory. In her first singles match in four years, a 44-year-old Serena Williams fell to Australia’s Maya Joint 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-3 in a three-set thriller that left the capacity crowd on its feet — and perhaps reaching for a handkerchief.

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A Comeback Nobody Saw Coming

Williams played her first singles match since “evolving away” from the sport after the 2022 U.S. Open. Her return began quietly — re-entering the drug-testing pool late last year, then playing doubles matches earlier in June. Few believed a singles comeback was truly coming. Then came the wildcard. Then came Tuesday.

Williams said her approach going in was simply “to have fun.” “As of now, I’m not nervous,” she said. “My expectation here is just to take it easy and to be calm and to have fun, which is something I historically have never done, but in a good way.”

She became the second-oldest woman to play a Wimbledon main draw singles match, behind only Martina Navratilova in 2004.

In the stands, her family watched every point. Her daughters Olympia and Adira, ages 8 and 2, were in attendance. Williams had previously said her comeback is “really about my kids getting to see me play.”

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The Match

The first set belonged to Joint. From 3-all, Joint won five consecutive games to break open the match under the Centre Court roof. Williams showed flashes of her old brilliance — a thunderous forehand here, a 122-mph serve there — but the rust was visible and Joint was playing with remarkable composure for a player on the sport’s grandest stage for the first time.

The second set was a different story entirely. Both players traded breaks with momentum swinging wildly back and forth, and neither could capitalize as tension built on Centre Court. Williams saved a match point in the tiebreak, and then, with one piercing serve, leveled the match. The crowd erupted as though she had won the whole tournament.

In the third set, Williams had a game point to go up 3-1. Then Joint rallied, taking four consecutive games before serving out the match. The failed consolidation of that early break seemed to take all the wind out of Williams’ sails.

Williams smiled as she acknowledged the crowd on her way off a court she has conquered seven times.

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Joint’s Moment

Lost in the legend of Serena’s return was the story of Maya Joint — a 20-year-old Australian who admitted she barely slept the night before. “I was up ’til, like, 2 a.m. just thinking about it,” Joint said. “Walking out, I forgot the warm-up. I don’t know what happened. My legs weren’t moving.”

Joint snapped an 11-match tour-level losing streak with the biggest win of her young career. Before the tournament, Joint had said she was “surprised” and “excited” to face Williams, adding: “I never thought I’d get to play against her. She stopped playing when I kinda got on tour.”

After her victory, Joint said: “I really don’t know what to say right now.” On a day when no one expected her to be the story, she was.

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What Comes Next

The Wimbledon journey is not entirely over for Williams. She is entered in the women’s doubles with older sister Venus, with their first match Thursday. Together they have won the Wimbledon doubles title six times, most recently in 2016.

As for singles, the questions linger. Williams has not announced whether she plans to play more singles tournaments. The next Grand Slam, the U.S. Open, begins August 30.

Williams said going into Wimbledon that she didn’t have a definition of success for this portion of her career, however long it lasts. By that measure, Tuesday was an unambiguous triumph. She came back. She competed. She made her daughters proud on the most celebrated grass court in the world.

The scoreboard said she lost. Centre Court said otherwise.