Source : ABC NEWS
Australian teenage tennis star Maya Joint has eclipsed one of Ash Barty’s records as she achieved another significant landmark in her burgeoning career by earning her first WTA 1000 match triumph at the Madrid Open.
On her tour-level clay-court main draw debut in the Spanish capital, the 19-year-old Queenslander outlasted local wildcard Carlota Martinez Cirez 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 for a third win in three days.
Just five days after her 19th birthday, it meant Joint became the youngest Australian to win a WTA match at ‘Masters’ level since the system was introduced in 2009, surpassing Barty who won at the Miami Open in 2017 when she was 20 years and 330 days old.
It was her second WTA 1000 match, after losing in the opening round of Indian Wells to Romanian’s Sorana Cirstea in March.
Already having earned notable wins over the experienced duo of Sara Errani and Jil Teichmann in qualifying, the US-born Joint, who has made massive strides over the past two seasons since throwing in her lot with the nation of her Australian dad, came through a roller-coaster first-round affair.
It was the Brisbane-based youngster’s first match in a tour-level clay event, but she showed why her record in smaller clay-court tournaments has been so encouraging as she overcame a second-set lapse to dominate the impressive Spanish tour debutant Martinez Cirez.
Joint, who was ranked 269 in the world this time last year, eked out her victory in two hours and seven minutes, setting up the chance to make even more waves when she faces American world number 10 Emma Navarro in the second round.
Ajla Tomljanović’s hopes of joining Joint in the last 64 ended with a disappointing 6-3, 1-6, 7-5 defeat to world number 153 Rebeka Masarova, who is ranked 74 places below the Australian.
With Kim Birrell having been beaten by American Peyton Stearns, it leaves just Joint and Daria Kasatkina, set to take on American Alycia Parks in her second competition as an Australian competitor, flying the flag in the women’s draw.
On the men’s side, Chris O’Connell earned himself an inviting shy at Taylor Fritz, hoping to conjure up a sensation in the ‘Magic Box’ with the American world number four a potentially vulnerable target after his 2025 injury woes.
The indefatigable O’Connell, one of the busiest Australians on tour in his 10th tournament of the year, earned a handy win in the first round of the ATP 1000 event at the Spanish capital’s famous Caja Magica venue, beating Argentinian world number 59 Camilo Ugo Carabelli 6-3, 6-4.
The 30-year-old O’Connell, ranked 87, converted all three of the break points he earned and saved seven of the eight he faced to join compatriots Alex de Minaur and Alexei Popyrin, who both had byes, in the second round.
There he’ll face US Open and ATP finals runner-up Fritz, the third seed who’s competing in his first clay-court tournament of the season after a 2025 campaign dogged by an abdominal injury that’s prevented him playing anywhere near his best.
AAP
