How Karolina Muchova outfoxed Linda Noskova

For tennis purists, it doesn’t get much better than Karolina Muchova. The Czech is an athletic and artistic player who treats the court like a canvas to be painted with various colors and styles. She has the versatility to trade power shots, change tempo with slices and touch, or charge the net to finish with a volley. When almost all her peers lean on power baseline attacks, Muchova’s fully formed game is almost an unorthodox throwback.

Countrywoman Linda Noskova is decidedly more new school. The 20 year-old has some versatility in her game, but she’s more of a carpenter—see ball, hammer ball. She announced herself to the tour in 2024 with a quarterfinal run in Melbourne that included a win over top-seeded Iga Swiatek.

The Olympic doubles partners had never previously faced off before their third-round match Saturday on the Grandstand. Even though Muchova was the lower seed, the US Open website actually had Noskova the slight favorite. Some of that could have been due to Muchova’s lack of matches this year, as well as playing two tough three-setters to reach this point of the draw. Whereas her younger opponent came in with two straight-set wins including a retirement in the previous round.

In the end it was the veteran who used her craftiness and experience to fashion a 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-2 victory over her hard-hitting opponent. Here are some instructive takeaways from the all-Czech affair:

Prepare Properly

Czech players are renowned for being technically sound off the ground, and both women follow in that tradition. A great example is how they prepare the racquet in their forehand backswing. They use their off-hand to guide the racquet to the side of their body—not back—and turn their upper body. The hoop is even with their chest, with the strings facing the court and the butt cap pointed behind them. When they drop the racquet into the slot, it always remains on that side of their body. If you were their opponent looking straight at them from the other side of the court, the racquet head would never cross their backs throughout the entire motion. This leads to more efficient and consistent ball striking.

Find Your Rhythm

Both women have solid first serves, but Noskova really struggled on her second. She had nine double faults in the first set alone and 15 overall. Where Muchova has solid mechanics, Noskova’s motion has a slight hitch in the backswing, and she can lose control over the racquet face. Plus, the sun over the Grandstand seemed to be giving her fits.

Tennis is a difficult game, but it’s not complicated. If your serve isn’t clicking to start a match—as was the case with Noskova—take something off it to develop consistency. Especially if you’re donating lots of double faults and struggling to hold serve. Once you start finding the range, building confidence and getting ahead in games, then you can go back to letting it rip.

Have Options

“Muchova’s variety and movement allow her to play a more all-court game than many,” says Mark Kovacs, a high-performance coach who has worked with numerous Tour players. “This variety provides her with the ability to change her game style as needed depending on her opponents.”

Muchova recognized she wouldn’t win by arm-wrestling with Noskova from the backcourt and was better off mixing spins, speeds and depth to create quicker, cat-and-mouse exchanges. She used her serve to open space in the court for her next shot, pressured Noskova’s shaky second serve and dished out equal portions of junk balls and heavy strikes to keep Niskova guessing.

Some players can be quite effective being somewhat one-dimensional, be it bashing serves and groundies or chasing down every ball. It brings clarity to an otherwise unruly game. However, when Plan A isn’t working, Plan B is to see Plan A. It takes time to develop, but being able to attack opponents in a multitude of ways is a huge asset.

Hang Around

The match was a mostly nervy, uneven affair that neither woman will likely put in a time capsule. There were only a few extended rallies or dramatic shots that brought the sparse crowd to its feet. Both served for the first set—Muchova at 5-3 and Niskova at 6-5—and both imploded. As poorly as she served, Niskova still somehow managed to steal the first set in a tiebreaker. To her credit, Muchova didn’t let the missed opportunity discourage her and continued to press her younger opponent into mistakes until she cracked.

But that’s tennis—most matches aren’t works of art. Even if you’re game is off, your level of compete doesn’t have to follow suit. Stick with it and your opponent may hit a rough patch or panic at closing time. Someone has to win, might as well be you.