Sebov causes surprise vs Fruhvirtova

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MIAMI, Fla. – One had the latest Nike, and a LARGE team of people supporting her from the stands at the Miemi Open Wednesday.

The other was Katherine Sebov, the No. 172 ranked Canadian who buys her Nike at the shop, had … mom on hand for support and needed a wild card just to get into the qualifying.

But after two impressive wins in the qualifying to make the main draw, Sebov pulled off another, beating the highly-touted 17-year-old Linda Fruhvirtova 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 to earn a date with No. 3 seed Jessica Pegula in the second round.

Fruhvirtova, who checked into the top 50 for the first time on Monday (at exactly No. 50), was all over the place. Her 13 double faults were balanced by … zero aces.

Meanwhile, Sebov just stayed the court, consistent from the baseline. She won nearly 82 per cent of her first serve points despite serving nothing like Aryna Sabalenka or Elena Rybakina. And she won 56 per cent of her second-serve points as well.

Fruhvirtova won just 2-of-13 points on her second serve in the deciding set.

Here’s what it looked like.

Sebov qualified for a Grand Slam singles draw for the first time in her career in Australia in January. After that, she didn’t play until she returned to action at a $25K ITF in her Toronto hometown a few weeks ago, and won it.

This is another first – a main-draw win at a WTA 1000.

Sebov had only played one other 1000 main draw – on a wild card in Toronto in 2022 after a few wild cards into the qualifying (where she lost to players like Lucie Safarova, Mirjana Lucic and … Ashleigh Barty).

She played Yulia Putintseva, beaten by compatriot Rebecca Marino Wednesday, and lost 7-5 in the third set.

(We wanted to speak to Sebov after the win, but the match started too late and we had a dramatic baseball game to get to. We’ll get her next time).