Australian Open: 16-year-old Brenda Fruhvirtova earns first Grand Slam victory

Qualifier Brenda Fruhvirtova beat Romanian Ana Bogdan 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 to reach the second round of the Australian Open at Melbourne Park on Sunday afternoon.

The 16-year-old Czech, who earned her first main draw win and Top 50 win last week at Auckland, earns her first main draw victory at a major with the triumph.

The 110th-ranked qualifier won eight of nine games to go from a set down and 4-4 in the second set to a set apiece and 5-1 up in the third. Bogdan pushed back, saving four match points to get to 5-3 in the third but Fruhvirtova served out the biggest match of her career in the next game.

“I’m very happy to get my first major win” – Fruhvirtova

Fruhvirtova told the media that she was very happy to get her first win at a Slam even though she did have some issues with her wrist. “Right now I’m feeling very exhausted and tired from the match. But, of course, I’m very happy to get my first major win,” she told the media in Melbourne. “There were a lot of emotions. I don’t know which match was that for me. I think it was like the sixth maybe or fifth. I don’t know. So, I was just focused in the moment because I really wanted to finish it. Yeah, it was really amazing feeling to finally finish the match and then to get the win.”

Fruhvirtova is the youngest player to win a main draw match at the Australian Open since Coco Gauff in 2020.

Fruhvirtova will play the winner of the match between German qualifier Ella Seidel and Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, the second seed, next. She will be hoping her wrist which bothered her in her first round win gets better by then.

“I had some health issues with my wrist. It was very hard for me to fight my way through,” Fruhvirtova said. “The first set I was in a lot of pain there. Of course, it doesn’t excuse me, but still it was very tough for me. Then I just said, like, in the second set that you don’t get the chance so often. The Grand Slams, there are only four in the year. So I was, okay, even though I’m not feeling so well today, I still have to fight and try to win as many games and points as I can. I kind of got the rhythm and started to feel a little better in the second set. Then in the third set I was really in the match, and I was focused and fighting very hard. So that kind of helped me to get through.”

Melbourne (Grand Slam), other first-round results (Melbourne Park, hard, USD 58.910.000, most recent results first):

• Rebecca Marino vs. Jessica Pegula
• Aleksandra Krunic vs. Clara Burel
• Renata Zarazua vs. Martina Trevisan
• Lin Zhu vs. Oceane Dodin
• Yafan Wang vs. Sorana Cirstea
• Emma Raducanu vs. Shelby Rogers
• Katie Boulter vs. Yue Yuan
• Qinwen Zheng vs. Ashlyn Krueger
• Peyton Stearns vs. Daria Kasatkina
• Sloane Stephens vs. Olivia Gadecki
• Cristina Bucsa vs. Anna Blinkova
• Elena Rybakina vs. Karolina Pliskova
• Elisabetta Cocciaretto vs. Lulu Sun
• Emma Navarro vs. Xiyu Wang
• Camila Giorgi vs. Victoria Azarenka
• Greet Minnen vs. Clara Tauson
• Petra Martic vs. Ajla Tomljanovic
• Jelena Ostapenko vs. Kimberly Birrell
• Danielle Collins vs. Angelique Kerber
• Iga Swiatek vs. Sofia Kenin
• Caroline Garcia vs. Naomi Osaka
• Ons Jabeur vs. Yulia Starodubtseva
• Taylor Townsend vs. Paula Badosa
• Mirra Andreeva vs. Bernarda Pera
• Linda Fruhvirtova vs. Beatriz Haddad Maia
• Anna Kalinskaya vs. Katie Volynets
• Anhelina Kalinina vs. Arantxa Rus
• Viktorija Golubic vs. Veronika Kudermetova
• Yulia Putintseva vs. Anastasia Zakharova
• Magdalena Frech vs. Daria Saville
• Mayar Sherif vs. Elise Mertens
• Jaqueline Cristian vs. Katerina Siniakova
• Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova vs. Donna Vekic
• Rebeka Masarova vs. Aliaksandra Sasnovich
• Marta Kostyuk vs. Claire Liu
• Diana Shnaider vs. Jasmine Paolini
• Tatjana Maria vs. Camila Osorio
• Fiona Ferro vs. Mccartney Kessler
• Ekaterina Alexandrova vs. Laura Siegemund
• Kaja Juvan vs. Anastasia Potapova
• Anna Karolina Schmiedlova vs. Coco Gauff
• Nadia Podoroska vs. Tamara Zidansek
• Storm Hunter vs. Sara Errani
• Dayana Yastremska vs. Marketa Vondrousova
• Yanina Wickmayer vs. Varvara Gracheva
• Kayla Day vs. Viktoriya Tomova
• Elina Svitolina vs. Taylah Preston
• Linda Noskova vs. Marie Bouzkova
• Ella Seidel vs. Aryna Sabalenka
• Magda Linette vs. Caroline Wozniacki
• Sara Sorribes Tormo vs. Alina Korneeva
• Liudmila Samsonova vs. Amanda Anisimova: sunday
• Caroline Dolehide vs. Leolia Jeanjean
• Diane Parry vs. Xinyu Wang: sunday
• Maria Sakkari (8) beat Nao Hibino: 6-4, 6-1
• Maria Timofeeva (Q) beat Alize Cornet (WC): 6-2, 6-4
• Alycia Parks beat Daria Snigur (Q): 2-6, 6-2, 6-4
• Tamara Korpatsch beat Jodie Burrage: 2-6, 6-3, 6-0
• Elina Avanesyan beat Zhuoxuan Bai: 4-6, 7-5, 6-2
• Barbora Krejcikova (9) beat Mai Hontama (WC): 2-6, 6-4, 6-3
• Lesia Tsurenko (28) beat Lucia Bronzetti: 3-6, 7-5, 6-3
• Kamilla Rakhimova beat Emina Bektas: 6-4, 6-4
• Leylah Fernandez (32) beat Sara Bejlek (Q): 7-6 (5), 6-2