Thea Frodin has turned a junior title into a US Open moment. The 17-year-old from Los Angeles won the USTA Billie Jean King Girls' 18s National Championships and earned a wild card into the main draw, where she is set to face Elena Rybakina in her first US Open singles match on Tuesday.
For Frodin, the step is as sudden as it is earned. She said in a Monday phone interview that she has worked hard to reach this level and called the opportunity special, a fair description for a player whose next match will come against a Grand Slam champion in the biggest event she has played alone. She was already at the US Open last year in doubles, but this is different: one match, one opponent, no cover.
The path here has been unusual even by tennis standards. Frodin spent six months on set for King Richard as the body double for Demi Singleton, who played the younger Serena Williams, and she said she came away with a habit of copying Serena's strokes. That carried its own adjustment, because she said it took a while to get back to her normal technique after filming. She has not met Serena Williams or Venus Williams, but the connection to their story still sits close to her own.
That second life is part of what makes Frodin stand out, and it is also where the friction comes in. She said tennis has always been her No. 1 focus, yet she has also thought about balancing acting as a side gig if it is possible. She liked the environment on set and said she does not mind keeping that world in play, even as the match schedule now puts her squarely back on the court.
There is a tennis reason this matters beyond the novelty. Frodin lost in the qualifying round earlier this year in Miami in her previous WTA Tour attempt, so Tuesday gives her a different kind of test and a cleaner measure of where her game stands. She still has a year left in high school, and what comes after that has not been decided. For now, though, the story is simpler: a 17-year-old who won her way in, drew one of the toughest possible first-round opponents, and gets her first US Open singles match when the tournament asks the biggest questions first.
