Joint venture: How a Michigan teen became our happy little Vegemite

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Long before Maya Joint contemplated playing tennis for Australia, she was already spreading Vegemite on toast for breakfast as a kid.

Joint grew up in Michigan with her Melbourne-born father Michael – a former professional squash player – and German mother Katja, who played squash, tennis and badminton competitively.

Michael was the head pro at Detroit Athletic Club, and one of the members used to travel to Australia and bring back tubs of Vegemite after learning of Joint’s fondness for it.

“I’ve always eaten it since I was little,” a smiling Joint told this masthead. “I like Vegemite.”

Besides her father, the iconic spread was the 19-year-old’s first connection to Australia, which became far stronger about three years ago. It was then that Joint and her family chose to switch tennis allegiances over a relative lack of backing from the United States federation.

“As parents, we’re biased, but we felt she was doing a pretty good job despite the lack of support we were receiving from the USTA,” Michael said.

“We spoke about it with my wife, and decided to email Tennis Australia, asking if they were interested – and the rest is history. We were very fortunate with their response, and how Maya responded to that.”

Joint was relatively unknown at that stage, but Australia’s best juniors soon figured out she was the real deal when she beat Gold Coast prodigy Emerson Jones in practice sets at the national academy in Brisbane. Joint’s star has soared in the years since.

The quietly spoken teenager ended the 2024 season with her first grand slam match win at the US Open, and on the verge of the top 100 after barely being ranked inside the top 700 at the start of that year.

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Joint’s progress was so rapid that she changed her mind about attending the University of Texas, but not before forgoing $210,000 prizemoney as part of strict NCAA regulations for college athletes.

The decision was savvy. Joint went on to capture maiden WTA singles titles at Eastbourne and Rabat last year to stamp herself as a player to watch and future star, performing so well that she is seeded for the first time at the Australian Open.

Joint is also the top-ranked Australian women’s player at No.32.

“I feel a bit more pressure and expectations from other people, but it’s something I worked really hard for,” she said. “I’m very proud about it, and I think I’ve earned that spot.”

Joint celebrated Christmas with her Melbourne family for the third-straight year, knowing this would be the first Australian tennis summer where she would be a prominent figure.

More questions, more commitments and more attention in general. A British journalist quizzed her on sun protection and whether the tours do enough to promote it, the type of left-field question she will need to become accustomed to.

Joint, who is studying criminal justice at WTA university, is in a different world now, but it is the pressure she places on herself rather than what she feels externally that she is working on as much as anything else.

“You don’t really have any pressure when you’re ranked around 700,” she said.

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“You just go out there and play, with no expectations, and if you lose, it doesn’t matter, whereas now, you feel it matters. [That shifted] when I got into the top 100. You feel a bit more pressure from yourself that you’ve got to prove that you are at that level your ranking says.”

Joint’s ranking and new status meant she joined top-10 star Alex de Minaur as the spearheads of Team Australia at the United Cup, after she also achieved her goal of representing the country in Billie Jean King Cup last year.

An untimely bout of flu delayed the teenager’s start before she went head-to-head with grand slam champions Iga Swiatek and Barbora Krejcikova at the United Cup, then eventual titlist Mirra Andreeva in Adelaide.

It was not that long ago that Joint felt like an imposter to even be in the same draw as those kinds of opponents, but now she is trying to figure out ways to upset them.

“They’re amazing players,” she said.

“I need to work on my serve, and that’s a big thing I’ve noticed when I play the good players. But I think it’s great that I get to play them, and especially so early in the year because then, hopefully, I get the chance later in the year again, and I can see how I match up against them.”

Joint’s parents will be among a big throng of supporters, including her uncle, cousin and family friends, watching the No.30 seed start her campaign against Czech teenager Tereza Valentova.

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They are as amazed as everyone about how quickly their daughter has scaled the tennis world.

“We certainly didn’t expect it to be this quick,” Michael said. “To be seeded now, after two years, is unbelievable to us. We’re still pinching ourselves, and we could not be prouder.”

Joint has on- and off-court goals this year.

She wants to reach the third round at a grand slam for the first time – which could happen in the next week – and win her first singles title at WTA 500 level, but also plans to embrace her globetrotting existence more.

“It’s an exciting feeling [being seeded], especially because it’s my home event,” she said.

“The Australian fans have done an amazing job of embracing me, and supporting me. Even the first year when I played quallies, there were so many people out there supporting.”

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