Linda Noskova, who beat Marta Kostyuk in the Wimbledon semifinals en route to her first Grand Slam title in July, is hoping to follow a similar script at the US Open after converting her sixth match point to defeat the No. 11 seed 7-5, 5-7, 6-4 in 2 hours, 27 minutes and reach her first quarterfinal in New York.<\/p>\n
US Open:\u00a0Scores<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Order of play<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Draws<\/a><\/p>\n Noskova led 7-5, 5-3 and held two match points while serving at 5-4 in the second set, but Kostyuk saved both and swept the last four games to force a decider. Kostyuk kept pressing in the third, erasing a break deficit and saving three more match points before Noskova finally closed the door.<\/p>\n Nearly an hour of the match was contested after Noskova first held match point.<\/p>\n “I am more than relieved. This match was so tough, emotionally more than physically,” Noskova said in her on-court interview. “We did play for more than two hours, but still the nerves were definitely going since the start. There were a lot of crucial points, and I feel like a huge rock fell off my heart at the end.”<\/p>\n With the win, Noskova improved to 2-1 against Kostyuk at the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz level, with all three meetings coming this season. She also became the youngest Czech woman to reach a US Open singles quarterfinal since Daja Bedanova in 2001. Among players born in 2004 or later, only Coco Gauff (11) and Mirra Andreeva (4) have reached more Grand Slam quarterfinals than Noskova (3).<\/p>\n Noskova has now won 11 straight Grand Slam matches dating back to Wimbledon and will look to extend that streak when she faces World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka — whom she trails 0-2 in the head-to-head — for a spot in the semifinals.<\/p>\n “We did play two matches. (They) were very different,” Noskova said in her post-match press conference. “I know her game very well. We’ll see what happens. I still have a day to recover from today and refocus and prepare myself for that. But it’s going to be some fast tennis.”<\/p>\n There were stretches of fast tennis against Kostyuk as well, despite the grind-it-out nature of the match. That was especially true on the Ukrainian’s serve, where games were typically shorter regardless of the winner. Noskova, considered one of the tour’s strongest servers, shined brightest on return Sunday, winning 59% of Kostyuk’s second-serve points and breaking six times.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n That was one more break than Kostyuk in a match decided by razor-thin margins. Noskova won just one more point — 105 to 104 — across three sets.<\/p>\n It was fitting that Noskova surpassed Kostyuk’s total only after the final two points: an emphatic smash to set up her sixth match point, followed by a backhand from Kostyuk into the net to end the grueling battle.<\/p>\n Despite the loss, the Ukrainian ends her best Grand Slam season with two semifinals and three second-week appearances, matching or achieving her best result at three of the four Majors and finishing with a 13-4 record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Linda Noskova, who beat Marta Kostyuk in the Wimbledon semifinals en route to her first Grand Slam title…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,1602,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-762358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}