With the 2026 Australian Open drawing record crowds, tennis fans around the world are gearing up for another year of adrenaline-fuelled Grand Slam tournaments. For the elite athletes stepping onto the court, preparation began long before their first serve.

From the age of nine years old, Sarah Mildren knew she wanted to be a professional tennis player. “I started playing when I was about six years old at our local club in the Adelaide Hills,” says the now 17-year-old, the day before competing in the 2026 Adelaide International, one of the lead-in tournaments for the Australian Open.

“I’ve always been a super-competitive kid in everything I’ve done. When I started training with Todd Langman at Langman and Ley [Elite Tennis Academy] at Glenlea Tennis Club in Glenelg, I knew I just wanted to get better and better.”

Having played on the circuit since 2021, this will be her final crack at the junior title at the Australian Open before she moves to the adult tour.

For 19-year-old Maya Joint, 2026 is shaping up to be her best year ever. Following wins at the Rabat Grand Prix and Eastbourne Open last year, she enters the Australian Open as the first local seeded women’s player since Ash Barty in 2022.

Here, Sarah and Maya reveal how they ready themselves, both physically and mentally, to prepare for the gruelling nature of playing professional tennis and overcome the intense pressure to perform.

Reaching physical peaks

“My goal is always to improve my game,” says Maya, whose parents – Michael, a former professional squash player from Melbourne, and Katja, who played tennis, squash and badminton in Germany – encouraged her from a young age. After her first big successes at the Open level, Maya began training with the Tennis Australia National Academy in Brisbane in 2023, at the age of 16, so she could represent Australia. Her entire family moved to Australia two years later.

“All my work with Tennis Australia has got me to play at my best level in the past two-and-a-half years,” she says.

She works on her game and fitness throughout the day, stopping for a break at lunch time. “I tend to eat whatever I want,” Maya says of her nutritional goals. “Although I do try to include more protein, especially at breakfast time.”

After finishing school last year, Sarah is now able to spend much more time concentrating on improving her fitness and her game as she transitions on to the Women's Tennis Australia (WTA) tour.

“When I’m at home and training, I'll start off nice and early with a gym session at QT Athlete,” she says. “We either work on strength and power or conditioning and footwork. After that, I’ll do a technical session with Todd, where we’ll work on going through all the shots: slice, drop shot, serving. Then I'll do some drilling and, after that, practice sets.”

Overcoming mental hurdles

Having goals and working to achieve them is important for both players. “Specifically, this year, it’s to reach the third round of a Grand Slam or Masters,” says Maya. As well as her on-court team, she also has a mental coach to help her manage the psychological aspects of professional sport: “Then I can just focus on my own game and let it take care of itself.”

For Sarah, competing in all four Grand Slams at the junior level is her goal for 2026, along with playing more on the WTA tour and improving her ranking. To counter the heavy physical workload, she does some yoga, swimming and work on the family farm to help calm her mind and ground herself.

“Journalling is also a big help for me,” she says. “I’m journalling daily, maybe more, to get things out of my head either before or after training and matches. It helps me to get out anything that might be muddling up my thoughts.”

Teamwork makes the dream work

Like most Australian tennis players, both Sarah and Maya have a team of people behind them, from various coaches to family members.

“We talk a lot about situations in matches,” says Maya of conversations with her dad. “You need to be able to step back and think about the situation, which can be hard in the middle of a game. You need to take a step back [during the breaks] and try to look at it from a different point of view.”

Now that she’s on the WTA circuit, Maya also leans on some of the more experienced Australian players. “I like talking to Ajla [Tomljanović] a lot because she’s been on a lot of big stages, big moments,” she says. “She’s helped me quite a lot.”

Sarah gets a lot of support from her family. Her mum, Deana, supports her with travel organisation and preparation, after years of driving her around for training, matches and appointments. Dad Greg shares her single-mindedness and helps develop strategies to achieve her goals. Older sister Caitlin keeps her grounded. “She’s studying classical violin at university and isn’t into tennis or competitive sport,” says Sarah. “I think that gives me another perspective because when I’m with her I’m not thinking about tennis. We’re very close, so it’s nice.

“My coaching team and mentors really help me. Sometimes it's so easy to get caught up in everything, so it’s good having them there to keep me grounded and offer a different perspective.”

Coping with match-day pressure

While neither player is superstitious about their routine directly before a match, they both have rituals to help them get ready. Maya has a couple of unique ways to take her mind off the game: “We play soccer and card games before matches and during tournaments.”

For Sarah, it’s about creating calm. “I like getting my preparation in, making sure my pre-match nutrition is right, and making sure everything's organised,” she says. “Then I’ll do some journalling and focus on what goals I have in the match, as well as my game plan. Right before the game, I’ll warm up, get some reaction drills in, maybe do some skipping, get a pep talk from my coach and go out and play.”

The Grand Slam season starts this year with the Australian Open, held at Melbourne Park from January 12 to February 1 2026.