Great white hope Maya Joint is offering no excuses after crashing out of the Australian Open in a first-round shocker at Melbourne Park.
Seeded at a grand slam for the first time, the 19-year-old delivered a horrendous serving display in a 6-4 6-4 loss to Czech teenager Tereza Valentova.
Joint dropped service five times on John Cain Arena, coughed up eight double faults and faced a whopping 17 break points in total.
"I had a few more double faults than usual. I had quite a few unforced errors today. Yeah, just a tough, tough match," the Australian No.1 said.
"Mostly the second serve. I was struggling a bit with that. Just to commit to it, keep brushing up over it."
Her departure is a huge disappointment after the world No.32 arrived as the first women's home seed at the Open since Ash Barty took home the trophy in 2022.
But the 30th seed was simply unable to find the form that fired her from outside the world's top 100 and firmly into the spotlight with a blazing two-title season in 2025.
And the US-born talent refused to blame the added pressure for her shock early demise.
"I've gotten a lot of questions on that and, honestly, the seeding didn't really feel anything different than to a normal tournament," Joint said.
"I wanted to do really well here. I thought I had a good chance. So it's definitely a bit disappointing, but I'll just try and get back at it next week."
Joint was struck down with the flu earlier this month, forcing her out of Australia's opening tie at the United Cup mixed teams' event in Sydney.
That was no issue either, she reckoned.
"It was unfortunate timing that I got sick during that first match, but I was feeling fine then again for Adelaide (last week) and I was feeling good," the straight shooter said.
"So I think it didn't really affect my preparation, I don't think, that much," Joint said, adding she was only looking ahead now, not back.
"I still have doubles here, so I'll be playing that and then I'll go to the Middle East swing: Doha, Abu Dhabi, Dubai. Then do a training week, I think, and then Indian Wells, Miami.
"It can only get better from year to year. Disappointing, for sure.
"I'll learn a lot from this match. Just come back stronger next year pretty much."
Valentova reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open junior girls' event last year but was playing her first AO main-draw match on Tuesday.
"Yeah, it feels amazing," said the world No.54.
"I didn't expect that last year at the beginning of the year. I was playing at the ITF tournament and now I'm here in Melbourne.
"So it feels amazing."
