By Martyn Herman
LONDON, June 26 (Reuters) - American great Serena Williams will face Australian 20-year-old Maya Joint in the first round of her eagerly awaited return to Wimbledon, a potentially tricky tie for the seven-time champion playing at the tournament for the first time since 2022.
Williams, 44, was handed a wildcard by organisers. She last played a competitive singles match at the U.S. Open in 2022, after which she said she was "evolving away from tennis". She will face 53rd-ranked Joint,
who has won two WTA Tour titles including the grasscourt trophy at Eastbourne last year, on Tuesday.
Top seed Aryna Sabalenka, bidding for her first title at the All England Club, begins against Serbian qualifier Teodora Kostovic, while defending champion Iga Swiatek faces American Taylor Townsend.
Third seed Swiatek was drawn in the same half as second seed Elena Rybakina, who opens against Lois Boisson of France.
Men's defending champion and top seed Jannik Sinner will begin the Centre Court action on Monday against Serbia's Miomir Kecmanovic, while second seed and newly crowned French Open winner Alexander Zverev plays Belgium's Alexander Blockx.
Friday's draw threw up several intriguing men's first-round clashes, with unseeded British hope Jack Draper taking on American sixth seed Taylor Fritz and 41-year-old Swiss veteran Stan Wawrinka, playing his last Wimbledon, against former runner-up Matteo Berrettini.
Novak Djokovic, seeking an unprecedented 25th Grand Slam singles title at the age of 39, plays China's Wu Yibing in the first round and could meet Sinner in the semi-finals.
The presence of Williams, generally regarded as the greatest female player of all time with 23 Grand Slam singles titles, has electrified the Championships even before play begins.
Williams, a former world number one for 319 weeks and an iconic figure far beyond the tennis world, returned to competition this month in doubles at Queen's Club and Berlin, where she showed flashes of her old power.
She lost in the first round to unheralded Harmony Tan four years ago and has not won a singles match at the All England Club since beating Barbora Strycova in the 2019 semi-finals before losing to Simona Halep in the final.
Joint, 24 years her junior, is unlikely to relish facing such a decorated grasscourt player in a match certain to overshadow everything else on Tuesday.
Should Williams defy the odds and win two matches, she could face Swiatek in round three.
Sabalenka could be up for a repeat of her third-round clash last year with British favourite and 30th seed Emma Raducanu, who was drawn to face Croatia's Antonia Ruzic.
French Open champion Mirra Andreeva, who starts against Magda Linette, could face Sabalenka in the quarter-finals.
Coco Gauff, the American seventh seed who has struggled on the grass, has a relatively kind draw in the early rounds, starting against Germany's Tamara Korpatsch.
She could be in line for a quarter-final against fellow American and fourth seed Jessica Pegula.
Kecmanovic will be a tough first hurdle for Sinner, who arrives at Wimbledon with question marks over his stamina and no grasscourt warm-up tournaments.
He lost from two sets up against Argentina's Juan Manuel Cerundolo in the French Open second round.
Sinner starts as the overwhelming favourite to defend his title, however, especially as big rival Carlos Alcaraz is out injured.
His predicted quarter-final opponent is eighth seed Daniil Medvedev, although the Russian could be in danger in the first round against former runner-up Marin Cilic.
(Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
