NEW YORK (AP) — Thea Frodin once had to hit like Serena Williams in a movie. On Tuesday at the U.S. Open, she showed some pretty good power of her own in real life.
The 17-year-old from California lost to No. 2 Elena Rybakina 6-3, 6-2 while playing her first WTA Tour match in a Grand Slam tournament.
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Elena Rybakina, of Kazakhstan, returns the ball to Thea Frodin, of the United States, during the first round of the U.S. Open tennis championships Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Thea Frodin, of the United States, returns the ball to Elena Rybakina, of Kazakhstan, during the first round of the U.S. Open tennis championships Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Elena Rybakina, of Kazakhstan, returns the ball to Thea Frodin, of the United States, during the first round of the U.S. Open tennis championships Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Thea Frodin, of the United States, returns the ball to Elena Rybakina, of Kazakhstan, during the first round of the U.S. Open tennis championships Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Thea Frodin, of the United States, serves the ball to Elena Rybakina, of Kazakhstan, during the first round of the U.S. Open tennis championships Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Frodin fired 11 aces, nearly doubling up one of the best servers in women's tennis. She said her movie role in which she had to swing like Williams, the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, doesn't mean she feels pressure to show extra pop off the racket.
“I feel I have always been an aggressive player. That’s always been kind of my game, just to be aggressive,” the 6-foot Frodin said. “Obviously my height gives me the chance to serve bigger.”
In the 2021 film “King Richard,” Frodin was the body double for actor Demi Singleton, who played the younger Williams sister. Frodin earned the opportunity to audition after winning singles, doubles and mixed doubles sectional titles at the 10-and-under level in California and then spent six months working on set.
Will Smith won an Oscar for his performance as Richard Williams, father to Serena and her sister, Venus. Frodin hasn't met the sisters yet but said she noticed that Smith reposted one of her social media posts.
Frodin played her way into the U.S. Open by winning the USTA Billie Jean King Girls’ 18s National Championships to earn a wild card. She quickly gained more attention than that type of player usually gets because of her “King Richard” experience, but thought she handled that well.
“I mean, I think it’s hard to get away from all of that. It’s kind of just about accepting it and not letting it get to you,” Frodin said. “I feel like I did a good job of that.”
With fans in the Grandstand chanting her name, Frodin fired consecutive aces after facing match point trailing 5-1, then hit another to erase a third match point Rybakina had earned and eventually held serve. Rybakina finally finished the match on her fourth try by hitting her sixth ace.
Rybakina didn't know much about Frodin the player, but said during their scouting her team became aware of her Williams' role.
“I think that she has great shots, and especially serve,” Rybakina said. “She has this powerful game, which is I think great and it’s just a matter of experience, be more stable, playing matches. But she has the game. She can be quite dangerous with these kind of shots.”
Rybakina is guaranteed to take the No. 1 ranking from Aryna Sabalenka if she reaches the semifinals, or if the two-time defending champion doesn't win the tournament.
Frodin said playing someone with Rybakina's skills made it hard for her to show her normal aggressive style. Still in high school, she plans to return to junior tennis for now but hopes to have another chance at the top level.
“I think it was a fun experience to kind of see how the best players in the world, how they hit their balls and their shots,” Frodin said. “Hopefully the next time I meet her, if I do, I can be more experienced and see what I can do.”
See AP’s full tennis coverage here
Elena Rybakina, of Kazakhstan, returns the ball to Thea Frodin, of the United States, during the first round of the U.S. Open tennis championships Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Thea Frodin, of the United States, returns the ball to Elena Rybakina, of Kazakhstan, during the first round of the U.S. Open tennis championships Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Elena Rybakina, of Kazakhstan, returns the ball to Thea Frodin, of the United States, during the first round of the U.S. Open tennis championships Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Thea Frodin, of the United States, returns the ball to Elena Rybakina, of Kazakhstan, during the first round of the U.S. Open tennis championships Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Thea Frodin, of the United States, serves the ball to Elena Rybakina, of Kazakhstan, during the first round of the U.S. Open tennis championships Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
The U.S. Postal Service is poised to launch a hastily built, error-riddled computer system that could jeopardize the process of mail voting relied upon by one-third of all voters, according to a whistleblower statement released Tuesday by Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
The effort is part of the implementation of President Donald Trump's executive order limiting mail voting and has been temporarily halted by a federal judge. The ruling is being appealed by the administration and the directive may ultimately end up back before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The disclosure from the unidentified whistleblower contends that the Postal Service has been scrambling to try to build a complex system that would normally take a year or more in only three months, sometimes in defiance of the judge's orders halting work. The goal is to have it ready for use in the midterm elections.
The disclosure contends that, due to the new procedures, a single scanning error in a batch of tens of thousands of ballot envelopes could prevent any from reaching voters. It details a system that election officials have already warned could not be implemented before the first mail ballots begin going out Friday in North Carolina.
“The Postal Service has designed a system to disenfranchise millions of Americans,” Blumenthal told reporters in advance of releasing the whistleblower information. “This administration seems hell-bent on changing the framework on casting ballots in this country clearly for political reasons.”
Trump’s executive order, signed in March, directed U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the commissioner of the Social Security Administration to develop state citizenship lists and then required the Postal Service to send mail ballots only to voters who are on such a list. Ballot envelopes would have to comply with new Postal Service rules and include barcodes.
The online portal that is the subject of the whistleblower complaint is intended for states to deliver their lists of verified voters to the Postal Service.
The Postal Service released a statement Tuesday evening in response to Blumenthal's letter, pledging to work with Congress and the courts. It noted that the judge who issued the latest restraining order explicitly allowed the service to continue to develop its online tool for states that want to use it voluntarily.
“Regardless of political party or perspective, we share a common goal: ensuring that Americans can have confidence that their election mail will be handled securely and delivered reliably,” the Postal Service said.
The White House said the software buildout process is “neither complex nor unique” for the Postal Service because it already uses bulk mailing and intelligent mail barcodes for large customers. “Under President Trump, the federal government is working to ensure safe, transparent, and honest elections," spokeswoman Lauren Bis said.
Jonathan Smith, president of the United Postal Workers Union, which has long opposed the executive order, said in a statement Tuesday: “The whistleblower report reveals what this executive order was always about — denying Americans their hard-fought right to vote. It is creating chaos in a system that is proven to be a safe, secure way for millions of Americans to vote.”
The 20 Democratic House members who sit on the Oversight Committee wrote a letter to Postmaster General David Steiner criticizing the project in light of the new revelations. "We demand that you immediately cease implementation of this irresponsible and illegal scheme to implement the Trump Administration’s plan to control our federal elections,” the Democrats wrote.
Trump has long opposed voting by mail, even though he has repeatedly used the method to cast his own ballot. He falsely blamed mail voting for his 2020 election loss and has spent years spreading conspiracy theories about it. A report by the Brookings Institution published in 2025 found that mail voting fraud occurred in only about four cases out of every 10 million mail ballots cast.
Since returning to office, Trump has said Republicans should be “taking over” vote counting in Democratic areas and launched a sweeping attempt to reinvestigate the 2020 election, despite a mountain of evidence that he lost fairly to Democrat Joe Biden.
Until Trump came out against mail voting in 2020, the system was used equally by both parties. Since then, it has become more common among Democratic voters. More than 29% of all voters in 2024 cast their ballots through the mail.
After Trump issued his executive order, Democrats and civil rights groups sued and eventually won a ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani in Boston barring implementation of the system before the November midterms. But without ruling on the legality of Trump's order, the Supreme Court's conservative majority last week found that was premature and overruled Talwani, momentarily clearing the way for its implementation.
On the night of Aug. 21, the Postal Service released a final rule outlining how it would implement the order.
It said it would only send mail ballots for states that got approval for the design of their envelopes and submitted a list of voters receiving them through the still-not-active online portal. That rule gave plaintiffs a chance to sue again, and Talwani on Thursday night issued a 14-day restraining order against implementation of the measure.
The letter from Blumenthal and an accompanying summary of the whistleblower's statements says the Postal Service began work on the portal on June 15 and stopped on June 25 after Talwani's initial order. Then on July 29, the Postal Service restarted the work. That was when the administration appealed the judge's order to the Supreme Court. The high court did not strike Talwani's injunction down until Aug. 24.
Talwani last week found the Postal Service violated her order by continuing to work on the final rule, but she imposed no sanctions on the government. On Monday, she issued a ruling refusing to lift the restraining order that also said the Postal Service could continue work on its portal, as long as it wasn't forcing states to use it.
In its summary of the whistleblower's statement, the group Whistleblower Aid says the hurried construction of the portal, with a goal of being active Tuesday, meant it did not undergo full testing.
“The apparently sloppy and rushed manner in which the Federal Ballot Mail Portal and supporting IT systems are being built poses significant risk,” the group wrote. “Potentially millions of American voters may not receive their mail-in ballot this election cycle in a timely manner, or at all.”
The statement also says the Postal Service is implementing a “zero percent” rule in which any errors in any mail ballots sent out by an election office could lead to all of them being discarded — even if it's simply one problem amid tens of thousands of legitimate ballots.
The rule requires ballots to be handled in a physical post office by an election official. Those will then be scanned to ensure they match the voter database. During three layers of checks, a single apparent error could cause the whole batch to be rejected, the statement says.
Blumenthal said he has “a very strong hope and some faith that our system of justice will strike down this unconstitutional and unconscionable rule.” But, he added, if it somehow goes into effect for the midterms, he would not advise voting by mail.
Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this story.
The Supreme Court is seen on the morning after the conservative majority sided with the Trump administration in a case over President Donald Trump's executive order restricting mail-in voting, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
FILE - Delivery vans are parked during a protest staged as part of a countrywide National Day of Action Tuesday, July 28, 2026, outside the main United States Postal Service headquarters in northeast Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
