Wimbledon 2026 marked a full circle moment for Linda Noskova. On the eve of the 2024 edition, during which she notched up her debut match-win at the All England Club, the Czech player lost her mother to cancer.
Key Factors
Two years on, the 21-year-old stood on Centre Court holding aloft the Venus Rosewater Dish – the prize given to the women’s singles champion – after beating compatriot Karolina Muchova 6-2, 5-7, 6-3 in a topsy-turvy final. After a sluggish set and a half, the 29-year-old overturned a 2-5 deficit in the second stanza to level the contest at one set apiece. Wimbledon was Muchova’s second loss in a Major final after the 2023 French Open reverse to Iga Swiatek. She lost in three sets in Paris too (2-6, 7-5, 4-6). On Thursday, Karolina Muchova painted her best portrait yet by beating seventh seed Coco Gauff 6-2, 1-6, 7-6 [12-10] and entering her maiden singles final at the All England Club. On Saturday, Muchova will take on compatriot Linda Noskova, who overcame Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk 6-4, 6-4. It will be a first women’s singles final at SW19 between compatriots since Serena Williams met sister Venus in 2009. In boys’ singles, India’s Arnav Vijay Paparkar lost to United States’ Jordan Lee 2-6, 5-7 in the quarterfinals. But the 18-year-old, for whom this is the first year at Slams and also the last year in juniors, was overall satisfied. It will be the first women’s singles final at Majors between compatriots since the 2017 US Open featuring Madison Keys and Sloane Stephens. Four players representing Czechia have won women’s Grand Slam singles titles and all four have triumphed at the All England Club – Jana Novotna (1998), Petra Kvitova (2011 and 2014), Marketa Vondrousova (2023) and Barbora Krejcikova (2024). Ahead of her second straight Major semifinal, Kostyuk might also be secretly happy that she spent 40 minutes less than Noskova on court. Second seed and Roland-Garros champion Alexander Zverev got past Taylor Fritz 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 to enter his maiden Wimbledon semifinal. He will meet British wild card Arthur Fery, who overcame Flavio Cobolli 6-4, 7-6(4), 6-0.
“The third set would not have been the same if I had lost the first game. I lost five games in a row in the second; so it was very important to start off great. The win at SW19 did not come easy, for she blew five championship points in the second set and had to weather a storm early in the third by saving multiple break-points. “I was in the bathroom and just splashed some cold water on myself. I’m glad that I kept my cool and somehow played like I did in the first set,” she added. For Muchova, this was the moment the match slipped away. “But I was in the finals and it’s still a pretty great achievement. It’s still something I would take. My game is good and I’m improving. It’s a goal of mine to lift that Grand Slam trophy. This is a setback, but a motivation as well. In fact, she had exited in the first round in each of the last four editions. But that dismal record now stands emphatically corrected, as the tenth seed battled past a spirited Gauff, even saving a match-point in the nerve-wracking deciding set tie-break. On the ensuing match-point, Gauff drilled a powerful serve that Muchova could only block, but instead of slapping the ball away, the American attempted an indecisive drop and dumped it into the net. A beautiful lob earned Muchova her first match-point but Gauff snatched it away with a looping cross-court pass. Before their respective semifinals, Karolina Muchova and Linda Noskova had never played a match on Centre Court. If Muchova’s affinity for grass is best expressed in her court-craft and tactical nous, Noskova’s game flows from her punchy serve. “We are all brought up in the same way in Czechia in our game styles, but in some ways we are very different. “We are very creative, I would say. And grass allows us to use any side [multiple facets] of tennis – if it was serve and volley back in the day, and if it’s slices and volleys in this new era. During the unrelenting summer, every little edge matters. Two excellent backhand winners in the eighth game showed her resolve, and a third from the same wing breached Paolini’s defence on match-point.
“I was just telling myself that the match was starting [all] over,” Noskova said about her mindset before the start of the deciding set. Noskova said.
