Linda Fruhvirtova halted wild card Elina Svitolina's return to grass with an emphatic 6-2, 6-0 victory in the first round of the Rothesay Classic.
The 18-year-old Czech, who won her first Hologic WTA Tour title in Chennai last year, snapped her four-match losing streak in style. She needed only 52 minutes to race past Svitolina and set up a second-round encounter with No.6 seed Bernarda Pera, who advanced 6-4, 7-6(3) past Marie Bouzkova.
Svitolina returned from maternity leave in April, and cut her ranking from No.508 to No.73 over the past month after winning her 17th career title in Strasbourg and reaching the Roland Garros quarterfinals. However, she was unable to bring her clay-court form into her first match on grass since 2021.
The Ukrainian committed 22 unforced errors, frequently misfiring on her finishing shots, while Fruhvirtova delivered a solid performance highlighted by her pinpoint lobs in the second set.
The match was No.57-ranked Fruhvirtova's debut in the main draw of a tour-level grass tournament, and she had won just one of her four previous professional matches on the surface. However, she enjoyed an excellent junior grass career, winning the 2021 Roehampton Grade A tournament and reaching the Wimbledon girls' semifinals a week later.
"I don't think I was even the favourite in the match, because Elina played so unbelievable in the last few months," said Fruhvirtova afterwards. "I had my first hit on grass this year on Saturday, so I was a little nervous about how it was going to go. But I have great memories of the British grass from juniors, so I was really looking forward to coming here."
