Marie Bouzkova is the first double champion of the Livesport Prague Open. The Prague native followed up her 2022 triumph with her second career title on the WTA circuit on Saturday. In the decider, she defeated favourite and top seed Linda Noskova 2-6, 6-1, 6-3, who in turn lost her second final at the venue.
Noskova entered the final as the favourite. As expected, the match developed mainly depending on whether she made an unforced error or produced a winning shot, or whether Bouzkova could withstand the firepower of her compatriot with her excellent defence.
While Noskova faced only one break point in the opening set and held all games on her serve, Bouzkova had to fight hard for every serve except the opening game.
Bouzkova hit only 33% of her first serves and produced the same number of unforced errors (15) as Noskova. Even the younger Czech didn’t show the best possible performance, but she still won the first set smoothly and was very solid in all respects.
Noskova was in complete control of the match. But at the beginning of the second set, the momentum surprisingly shifted to the other side.
Noskova committed a double fault on a break point and easily put Bouzkova up 3-0. She then broke that losing run and was able to return to the battle for the set. Bouzkova, however, pulled out a very good serve on both break points, increased her lead to 4-1 and won the next two games against the fading Noskova.
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Before the deciding set, Noskova left court for a few minutes, but the pause did not help her. Two consecutive double faults sent Bouzkova into a break lead. She broke back, but then her own errors saw her lose serve again, for the third time in a row. But she managed to even the score then too.
The streak of lost serves was ended by Noskova in the fifth game, and this time, Bouzkova managed to close it out. In the next game, Bouzkova defended well, forced Noskova into errors and again led by a break. And for the first time in the set, she managed to pull away from Noskova by two games. The favoured Czech could not close the gap, and she didn’t reduce the difference.
Both Czech tennis players were fighting for their second title in this duel. Bouzkova won both at the Livesport Prague Open, where she also reigned in 2022, and is the first two-time champion of the biggest domestic tournament. She improved her final record to 2-6. She moves up nine spots in the rankings to 38th, but will soon have points deducted for last year’s final in Washington.
Noskova also has a negative record in final matches. After the setback against Bouzkova, she worsened it to 1-3 and became the first tennis player since 2015, when the Livesport Prague Open was first added to the WTA calendar, to fail to win more than one final at this venue. She also failed the year before against lucky loser Nao Hibin and only took one title last year in Monterrey, Mexico.
It was the third purely Czech final of this WTA tournament. In the previous two, Karolina Pliskova defeated Lucie Hradecka (2015), and Barbora Krejcikova beat Tereza Martincova (2021).
Both Bouzkova and Noskova will now take an overnight flight to the Masters event in Montreal, Canada, where the main competition starts on Sunday. Noskova will defend her aforementioned triumph in Mexico before heading to the US Open.
Catch up on the scores from the WTA 250 tournament in Prague here.