Frodin's Journey: Testing Herself Against Tennis Elite

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 statements about the future. Just a teenager testing herself against one of the game’s elite and discovering she could belong.

“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.”

Elena Rybakina, a major champion and ruthless front-runner on her day, saw it too. She didn’t need to dress it up: Frodin “played really well today,” she said, a concise verdict that carries weight in a locker room that rarely hands out compliments for free.

For Frodin, this is not the first time her story has brushed up against tennis royalty. At 12, she worked as the stunt and body double for Demi Singleton, the actress who played young Serena Williams in the film about Richard Williams and the rise of Serena and Venus. She helped bring the early chapters of a legend to life before she had even written the first line of her own.

She still hasn’t met Serena. She wants to. You sense that day would matter to her, not as a fan moment, but as a checkpoint in a journey that started in the shadows of someone else’s story and is now edging into its own light.

The next steps, though, remain deliberately open.

Frodin has not decided whether to head down the college route or jump straight into the professional grind. There is no rush in her voice, no hint of panic about timelines or rankings.

“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.”

The match with Rybakina, and the praise that followed, hasn’t suddenly flipped a switch. It has, however, sharpened her ambition.

She doesn’t talk about that encounter as a one-off. She talks about it like a starting point.

“Hopefully the next time I meet her, if I do, I can be more experienced and, yeah, see what I can do,” Frodin said.

The first taste of this level left her wanting another shot. The next time, she doesn’t just want to enjoy it. She wants to see how far she can push a champion.