NEW YORK — At twelve, Thea Frodin doubled for a young Serena Williams on a Hollywood set. At seventeen, she walked onto a Flushing Meadows court ranked No. 585 in the world and out-aced the No. 2 seed.
Three of those aces came down match point. Her serve was clocking 122 miles per hour, and it kept finding the box. Elena Rybakina, two wins from clinching the world No. 1 ranking, was not touching them.
It was not enough.
Rybakina won 6-3, 6-2 in seventy-four minutes on Monday and still walked off saying Frodin “has great potential and a great game.” From a player who has won a Grand Slam and spent most of 2026 chasing No. 1, that is not encouragement. That is scouting.
Eleven aces to Rybakina’s six. A fastest serve of 122 miles per hour to Rybakina’s 120. The unforced errors, double faults, and break points conceded told the rest of the story. In the two columns that shape what comes next, the wild card outperformed the champion.
“She has great shots, especially her serve,” Rybakina told the WTA afterward. “She has this powerful game, which I think is great. It’s just a matter of experience, being more stable.” She added that Frodin “has great potential.” From someone two wins from No. 1, that lands as assessment, not as courtesy.
The backstory that preceded Monday has been building since 2019. At twelve, Frodin won a 10-and-under sectional tournament in California and caught the attention of the producers behind King Richard, the Will Smith film about the rise of Venus and Serena Williams. She was hired to double Demi Singleton, who played the young Serena, spending months on set in Los Angeles doing on-screen what she had been doing on court since she was six, as Yahoo Sports reported.
“It helps that I was kind of playing a sport that I’ve done my whole life,” Frodin said before her debut. “Doing it with Will Smith was super cool. He’s a super nice guy.”
She has not yet met the Williams sisters whose story she helped put on screen. She would like to. “Hopefully, if I get a chance to hit with them or just meet them, anything, I’ll take it,” she said. “That would be incredible.” The symmetry would be complete: the girl who embodied them on film, now facing them across a net.
What brought her to the Grandstand was not the film. Her 2026 record includes a semifinal at the Australian Open girls’ singles, quarterfinals in junior doubles at both the Australian Open and Roland Garros, and a finalist run at Wimbledon junior doubles in 2025. She won the 2025 USTA Girls’ 18s national doubles title, then came back in August and won the 2026 USTA Girls’ 18s Singles National Championship, beating five seeded players to earn the wild card.
Her WTA ranking is 585. Rybakina’s assessment sits beside that number, both simultaneously true.
The match followed Rybakina’s pattern. The fourth game broken, the eighth broken, the backhand relentless from the baseline. She converted three of five break-point opportunities and saved both break points she faced. The left ankle that forced her retirement at Cincinnati two weeks earlier was not a visible factor on Monday. She looked recovered, measured, and exceptionally good.
Five of Frodin’s eleven aces came in the second-to-last game of the match. Three came when she was one point from losing. Rybakina broke in the next game anyway.
The loss came with $140,000 in prize money, more than any junior tournament Frodin has entered. That number matters when you are seventeen, ranked 585th, and still finishing high school.
The 2026 US Open has already produced first rounds shaped by biography more than seeding. Venus Williams’ midnight exit two days earlier was one. Frodin’s match was another: an extraordinary backstory, an unfavorable draw, and enough velocity to make the No. 2 seed take notice.
Three match-point aces. A fastest serve faster than Rybakina’s. Eleven to six. She ran out of games, not speed.
Related Posts
