Teenager Frodin Tests Herself Against Rybakina

She walked onto the court with a simple plan: strip it all back.

“I tried going out there to see what it would be like just to, I guess, feel no pressure ... just go out there and have a fun time,” Frodin said.

No big declarations. No grand designs. Just a teenager testing herself against one of the game’s most formidable ball‑strikers, Elena Rybakina, and trying to enjoy the shock of the stage rather than be crushed by it.

By the end, she had her answer.

“I feel like that’s what I accomplished, and obviously I have a lot to learn, but I’m excited with most of the things I did out there.”

Rybakina, a major champion with the kind of weight and precision that usually flattens inexperience, saw it the same way. She said Frodin “played really well today” — a short line, but a telling one. Top players don’t hand out that sort of praise lightly, especially to someone just beginning to work out who she might become in this sport.

The story, though, started long before this match.

As a 12-year-old, Frodin was already part of tennis folklore, even if few people knew her name. She served as the stunt and body double for Demi Singleton, the actress who played young Serena in the film about Richard Williams and the rise of Serena and Venus Williams. While the world watched a Hollywood retelling of greatness, Frodin was out there replicating the movements, the footwork, the silhouettes of a legend.

She has not yet met Serena Williams, though she hopes that day will come. For now, the connection is symbolic: a young player who once mimicked Serena’s game now trying to carve out her own.

The next step, however, is not so clear-cut. The pathway for a talent at her age is always framed as a choice: college tennis or a jump into the professional grind. Frodin is in no rush to pick a lane.

“I think I’m trying to just finish high school, see where the rest of this year takes me,” she said. “I’m not rushing into kind of making a decision with all that.”

That patience might be her most mature quality of all. In an era where prodigies are fast-tracked and hyped before they’ve even sat their exams, she is content to let the picture sharpen over time.

What is clear is that she already has a target in mind.