Linda Noskova landed her first Wimbledon title on 11 July in remarkable circumstances, hauling herself back from the brink of collapse to beat compatriot Karolina Muchova in a final that swung wildly from one end to the other.
The ninth-seeded Czech looked to be heading for heartbreak after squandering five match points and dissolving into tears mid-match on Centre Court. Yet somehow she found the composure to close it out, eventually sealing a 6-2, 5-7, 6-3 win over her 10th-seeded friend and rival in two hours and 28 minutes.
At 21, Noskova becomes the youngest woman to lift the Venus Rosewater Dish in 15 years, matching the age at which her childhood idol Petra Kvitova won the first of her two Wimbledon titles back in 2011. Kvitova, fittingly, watched the win unfold from the royal box.
It continues a golden run for Czech women at the All England Club, following Barbora Krejcikova’s triumph in 2024 and Marketa Vondrousova’s in 2023. Noskova takes home £3.6 million ($4.8 million) as champion.
Grass has suited her quickly. She played her first match on the surface only in 2023, in Birmingham, yet has won more grass-court matches than anyone else on the WTA Tour across the past two years. Before this fortnight, she had never gone beyond a Grand Slam quarter-final, and she needed to save a match point against Sorana Cirstea just to reach the third round.
That escape puts her alongside Venus Williams (2005) and Serena Williams (2009) as the only women to win Wimbledon after being a match point from elimination earlier in the tournament. She is also the first woman since Maria Sharapova in 2004 to win a grass-court title, hers coming in Berlin in June, and Wimbledon in the same season.
Off court, Noskova has built a reputation as one of the tour’s more distinctive characters, a keen baker with a nose piercing and a strict ritual of matcha tea served by a friend each morning of the tournament. She also carries a difficult memory from these grounds: her mother died of cancer shortly before Wimbledon 2024.
The final itself began routinely enough, with Noskova taking the opening set comfortably in the first Open-era Slam final contested by two Czech women. The unravelling came in the second, as she wasted four match points serving for the title, then let Muchova level at 5-5 after squandering a fifth, at one stage covering her ears against the crowd’s gasps and later hiding under a towel to hide her tears.
She left the court before the decider, and returned transformed, breaking early and eventually sinking to the turf in disbelief as victory was confirmed.
