Live from Wimbledon Day 2 - Serena shines, but Maya prevails
The Tennis Podcast
David Law
4.5 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 30 June 2026
⏱️ 85 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Catherine, David and Matt react to Serena Williams’ singles return as she lost in three sets on Centre Court to Maya Joint.
In what way did this match and occasion actually exceed our expectations? How did Joint manage to overcome her nerves to play so well and win? Would playing a warm-up tournament have helped Serena? And what might the rest of her summer look like?
We then wrap up the other women’s results including an emotional Iga Swiatek passing a difficult test as defending champion against Taylor Townsend, Madison Keys and Elena Rybakina both surviving despite inconsistent displays, a shock defeat for Elina Svitolina, and a brilliant comeback by Jasmine Paolini.
In part two (47:30), we turn our attention to the men’s draw and Taylor Fritz’s blazer, Ben Shelton’s big missed opportunity, and a special win for Matteo Berrettini in four tiebreaks over Stan Wawrinka.
We end by looking ahead to the Day 3 Order of Play (1:13:14).
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the tennis podcast live from Wimbledon and presented by Barclays, the official banking partner of Wimbledon. |
| 0:19.6 | We are here in our position on the broadcast roof overlooking the grounds of SW19 as fans stream out from day two of the championships. |
| 0:31.0 | Another absolutely breathless day here at Wimbledon. |
| 0:35.5 | And one that no matter what the result, and I'm sure you're all aware of it |
| 0:39.3 | it will go down in history because it is the day that 23 time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams |
| 0:46.8 | made her Wimbledon come back at the age of 44 and everybody here whether they were in |
| 0:53.2 | centre court or on the hill or here on the broadcast roof setting up a live stream while it was happening, everybody here, I think, felt like they were a part of it, despite the fact that we have just watched Serena Williams be defeated 6367-6-6-6-3 by 20-year-old Australian |
| 1:13.9 | Maya Joint. |
| 1:15.0 | We're giving her sensation of the day. |
| 1:17.4 | For the rest of time. |
| 1:18.7 | For the rest of time, potentially. |
| 1:20.8 | She saved matchpointed Serena in the second set tie rate to take it into a third set, |
| 1:26.4 | give everyone in the grounds, I think, what they wanted, |
| 1:30.3 | which was as much of this match as they could possibly get. |
| 1:34.7 | Matt, you were in centre court in the press seats for all of this from the hugely anticipated |
| 1:41.1 | moment of Serena's walk on right up until that incredibly charming Maya |
| 1:46.2 | joint interview at the end tell us about the experience i'll never forget it it was very |
| 1:54.9 | very special you know like we've been waiting for this all day the match finally, and I just had this feeling of how surreal it all felt. |
| 2:05.3 | You know, like, in a way, it was like, oh, we have done this before. |
| 2:10.1 | It's Serena Williams playing a tennis match, but it also just felt like, oh, we've never done it this way before. And it's never felt like this. |
| 2:19.6 | And, you know, there were so many things through the match that were familiar. |
| 2:24.8 | You know, walking around the other side of the net after the very first game. |
... |
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