AUSSIE teenager Maya Joint is a Top 100 player for the first time in her professional career, after reaching the second round of the Merida Open in Mexico today. Joint raced through qualifying and wasted no time putting Julia Grabher to the sword in the first round, winning 6-3 6-2 in just 91 minutes.

Joint powered to victory against the world number 386 – using a protected ranking in Merida – to set up a huge clash with fifth seed Donna Vekic after Russian Anna Kalinskaya was a late withdrawal from the event.

In an eye-catching performance, Joint had a dominance rating of 1.36 thanks to only facing two break points – saving one – while winning 72 per cent of her first serve points. She broke Grabher five times from 12 chances and always looked in control, breaking twice in the first set – including in the final game – and twice in the second set.

In fact, Joint lead 5-0 in the second set at one stage but missed out on a bagel after being broken in what ended up being the penultimate game of the match. She quickly broke a game later though to secure the contest in just over an hour and a half.

From leading 4-3 in the first set, Joint won seven consecutive games to show just how damaging she can be at her best, hitting eight more winners for the match (22-14) and 16 less unforced errors (26-42). She also had a far higher return rating of 210 compared to Grabher’s 145 thanks to winning 72 per cent of the Austrian’s second serve.

The victory resulted in Joint having a live ranking of 87th, surpassing compatriot Olivia Gadecki (96th) in the process. She is behind only Kimberly Birrell (also at a career-high 75th), and can move up to 81st with an upset win over Vekic.

In other completed results at Merida, Armenian Elina Avanesyan came back from a set down to put away Polish seventh seed Magdalena Frech and join Joint in the Round of 16. She won 4-6 6-3 6-3 in impressive fashion, with Ukrainian Anhelina Kalinina also winning in three sets, when she defeated French qualifier Leolia Jeanjean.

Speaking of Birrell, the Aussie was made to work, but came back from a break down in the second set against defending ATX Open champion Yue Yuan in Austin. She needed two tiebreakers to overcome the Chinese fourth seed and joined Aussie wildcard Ajla Tomljanovic in the second round. Tomljanovic defeated seventh seeded local Katie Volynets 7-6 7-5 to turnaround some poor form in 2025.

Meanwhile, Spaniard Nuria Parrizas Diaz dominated wildcard Malaika Rapolu, with the Texas local ranked 542nd in the world, but bowing out in 91 minutes 6-2 6-4. Russian Anna Blinkova also picked up a day one victory, winning the last nine games to go from a set and 3-4 down to winning 4-6 6-4 6-0 against Japanese sixth seed Moyuka Uchijima.