Australian tennis champion Sam Stosur says Maya Joint’s “impressive” win over tennis legend Serena Williams is a “huge moment” in her career and could be the match that turns the fledgling star’s year around.

Joint stunned Wimbledon’s central court with a 6-3, 6-7 (6/8), 6-3 win over her idol and the modern era’s greatest women’s tennis player.

Williams, 44, a 23-times Grand Slam winner had not played a singles match since her defeat against Joint’s compatriot, Ajla Tomljanović, 1397 days ago in the 2022 US Open.

In London, Williams lost to an Australian might once more, ending her singles comeback.

Stosur rated Williams’ performance as “pretty good for someone who hasn’t played for four years”.

“I’m thoroughly impressed. Obviously, her movement wasn’t quite there, maybe a few more errors in bigger moments that you’re not used to seeing, but still pretty good.”

Stosur, who is mentoring Joint in her role as Australia’s Billie Jean King Cup captain, said that the young tennis star’s composure on central court was impressive and the key to her win.

“She’s had a really rough year, she’s had some injury, losses and been struggling to win matches, so you never know how to handle it in that situation, but win or lose, it was just about handling the moment and giving herself an opportunity,” Stosur said, during an appearance at the Australian High Commissioner’s official residence, Stoke Lodge.

“As a player and as a young player whose never been through something like that before, to come out of it that well, I think hopefully now this is going to turn her year around.

“This is a huge moment in her career, for sure but when you’re in it you’re not thinking about what all of these progressions (mean).

“Today she’s still got to go to practice, she’s still got to wake up tomorrow and play her second round. It’s only round one and she has known about this moment and this day coming for three or four days leading into it.

“Everyone’s talking about this particular match but it’s only round one, so she needs to come back tomorrow now, ‘alright that’s done, put it away,’ focus now and think about that a little bit afterwards.”

Joint came out firing in the opening set. Stosur says Joint did a lot of work with her sports psychologist to maintain her focus.

“I obviously gave my two cents, you have to stick with it every single time. Even more important than a game plan is that belief, that consistency of the application and the intent to do it and play bigger and be the player that you ultimately want to be, not necessarily the player that you felt like three weeks ago when you were out on court 10.”

The pair had lunch on Wednesday. Stosur said things would only get harder for Joint, despite downing one of tennis’ greats.

“She’s now seeing what she has to do, day in day out, to then get the reward.”

But she said that Joint had proven herself.

“Until that point it’s always a bit of a question mark. She went from 680 or something just over two years ago, last year she got herself to 30 in the world and this year’s been tougher which is absolutely totally normal for a player second year out,” Stosur said.

“She’s going to get back to where she is because she’s a really good player. These experiences are going to help.

“The best players still get nervous, Rafa (Rafael Nadal) still gets nervous every single time he steps out on court but they get so much better at handling it and when you’re ranked where she is you only get that opportunity every so often, whereas the top, top players, they’re walking out on Centre Court every single day that they play.

“So this the first of hopefully many opportunities that she gets to play like that.”