Joint and West Australians Gibson and Preston spent time living together last year near Tennis Australia’s national academy in Brisbane, while Jones – the daughter of world champion triathlete Loretta Harrop – is from the Gold Coast.

Jones, a dual junior grand slam finalist in 2024, trounced China’s top-40 player Wang Xinyu 6-4, 6-0 in Adelaide this week to send a none-too-subtle warning about her ability.

“It’s so great because we’re all rooting for each other,” Joint said.

“We all watch each other’s matches, and I’m on TNNS Live [scoring app] multiple times a day seeing how everyone is going. It’s such a nice group of girls to be with, and I love all of them.”

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Michigan-born Joint, whose father Michael grew up in Melbourne, switched tennis allegiances from the United States to Australia about 20 months ago.

Michael was a professional squash player and now coaches at Detroit Athletic Club, but the family reached out to TA early in 2023 after becoming frustrated at Joint’s lack of developmental opportunities with the US federation.

TA invited Joint to Brisbane to trial at the national academy, and the rest is history.

She slashed more than 650 spots off her WTA ranking last year to climb to No.119, including winning a round at the US Open, before pushing Victoria Azarenka to three sets in the second round at Brisbane last week. Joint is into the same round in Hobart.

Coached by Chris Mahony, she has been showered with “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie” chants this summer.

“None of the Aussie players have been like, ‘Oh, you’re not really Aussie, you’re American’, which is so nice, and I feel very included,” Joint said.

Gatecrashing the top 100 is Joint’s next goal, but she also wants to play for Stosur’s squad as soon as this year after being the team’s hitting partner in November. Data reveals her ball speed off the racquet is comparative with the top 10 on tour.

Joint has turned professional after foregoing most of her $A210,000 second-round prizemoney at last year’s US Open to at the time retain her college eligibility.

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Even with those aforementioned dreams within her grasp, she remains delightfully unaffected.

Joint was surprised to see herself on one of the Brisbane International promotional posters, and unashamedly souvenired one. Joint’s support team also needed several attempts to convince her in another moment that some starry-eyed kids were staring at her while she had a bite to eat.

But after feeling like an imposter at the US Open to be in the same draw as heavyweights Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek, the aggressive baseliner is starting to feel like she belongs.

“It’s crazy,” Joint said of her supersonic rankings rise.

“I didn’t expect it to happen [so quickly]. I was just playing well, and I didn’t think that I was going to jump that high – but hopefully, I keep going.”

Preston is a reminder that development is not always linear.

She soared to her career-high ranking of No.134 in March before making a winning singles debut in the Billie Jean King Cup the next month.

Preston’s long-time coach, Brad Dyer, has always had a big-picture mindset with her. He told this masthead after those achievements that they were committed to tackling the claycourt season against the WTA Tour’s best, knowing she had little experience on the surface.

Bulk losses followed, and Preston’s ranking suffered, but she predominantly maintained a WTA schedule for the grass and hardcourt swings.

But she made a $75,000 final in Sydney in November – going down to Jones – and has kept that form going, beating former world No.23 Mona Barthel in Australian Open first-round qualifying on Monday.

“It would mean literally everything [to make the main draw] – I really want to qualify here,” Preston said. “It’s a massive goal of mine.”

Gibson, who rose from No.301 to 125 in the rankings last year, is the quiet achiever of the group, but produces fireworks on court. Like Joint and Jones, Gibson’s best shot is her backhand, although Stosur was also impressed with her forehand in Brisbane.

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“There was a patch in that second set [against Marie Bouzkova] where she literally hit forehand winner after forehand winner, and was absolutely clocking it,” Stosur said.

“I was like, ‘Well, you’ve set the bar now, and you can see what you can do on both wings, not just your backhand’. Her movement and court coverage, and everything, really, has improved out of sight.”

Stosur believes it is important for the sport at home that Gibson, Jones, Joint, Preston and co continue their trajectory and graduate to elite ranks, but asked for patience.

“We want them to get there as quickly as possible,” she said.

“But it is a journey, and everyone goes through it in their own way, so it’ll happen when it happens. We’re behind them all, to hopefully create the best opportunities we can for them.”

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