Maya Joint Beats Serena Williams 6-3, 6-7, 6-3 in Wimbledon Return After 4 Years

Q: With the reigning champion struggling, can betting-favorite Aryna Sabalenka finally conquer Wimbledon's unpredictable women's draw?

Yes. Aryna Sabalenka looks better placed than anyone to win Wimbledon, but the women’s draw remains too volatile to make her anything close to a certainty. The case for Sabalenka is strong. She arrives as world No. 1, the top seed and the betting favorite, with a game well suited to grass: a dominant serve, flat power and the ability to shorten points on a surface that rewards aggression. She has also reached the Wimbledon semifinals in each of her last three appearances, which suggests she is consistently close to a breakthrough even without a grass title this season. Her biggest rival on paper, defending champion Iga Swiatek, does not enter with the same momentum. Swiatek lost her opening match in her only grass warm-up event, and analysts have pointed to her uneven 2026 season as a reason she is not the clear favorite despite being the reigning champion. Her section of the draw is also complicated by Serena Williams’ return as a wildcard, even if Williams remains a long shot after years away from singles competition. Still, Wimbledon’s women’s event has a recent history of surprise champions, and the field is deep. Elena Rybakina remains a major grass-court threat, while Mirra Andreeva, Jessica Pegula, Amanda Anisimova and others give the draw real depth. Even Sabalenka’s path may include Emma Raducanu in the third round if the Briton is fit enough to get there. So Sabalenka has the clearest opening, but at Wimbledon that is never the same as control.

3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Jul 1

Centre Court saw Serena Williams lose her Wimbledon singles comeback to 20-year-old Maya Joint, who closed out a 6-3, 6-7(6), 6-3 win after 2 hours and 22 minutes.
Two saved match points and a roaring hold at 5-5 in the second set briefly revived Williams, but Joint—ranked No. 87 and low on confidence entering the tournament—produced her best match in months.
Williams, 44 and back in singles after a four-year absence, had quietly rejoined the drug-testing pool and resumed training in February, underscoring that the return was a serious competitive bid.
The loss highlighted both her enduring shotmaking and how far the sport has moved on: none of the other 127 women in the draw had faced her at Wimbledon singles before this night.