By Martyn Herman
LONDON, July 9 (Reuters) – Just as strawberries, cream, Pimm’s and petunias are synonymous with the Wimbledon Championships, so are women from the Czech Republic excelling on the historic lawns.
Saturday’s singles final will feature 21-year-old Linda Noskova and fellow Czech Karolina Muchova after both came through their semi-finals on Thursday.
It will be the first time two Czech women have faced off in the singles final at a Grand Slam in the professional era and the fact it has happened at Wimbledon should surprise no one.
Whoever prevails, it will be the third time in four years that a Czech woman has held aloft the Venus Rosewater Dish following the triumphs of Marketa Vondrousova in 2023 and Barbora Krejcikova in 2024.
Before them there was Petra Kvitova, who won the title in 2011 and 2014 and the late Jana Novotna in 1998 and of course grass-court queen Martina Navratilova, who won the first of her nine singles titles as a Czech in 1978 before later becoming an American citizen.
Czech success is not limited to Wimbledon, but something in the water there clearly agrees with them.
“It’s a tradition at this point, I would guess, but I would say we are all kind of brought up in the same way in Czechia, in our game styles, in our tennis, but in some ways we are very different,” Noskova said.
Noskova used her serve, powerful groundstrokes and net skills to great effect in a 6-4 6-4 win over Marta Kostyuk to reach her first Grand Slam final.
“We are very creative, I would say, so grass allows us to kind of use any side of tennis, if it’s serve and volley back in the old days, if it’s slices and volleys in this new era.
“I would say that we have all these sides that we can use, that grass allows us, and it’s showing.”
Muchova, too, showed tremendous grass-court instincts in a stunning third-set tiebreaker against American Coco Gauff.
The 29-year-old 10th seed picked one stunning volley off her toes as she followed in her serve on one point, whipped up a sublime topspin lob on another, served an ace and continued being aggressive even amidst suffocating tension.
“I don’t have a theory,” Muchova said when asked what the Czech secret formula is.
“Yeah, we have great history of Czech tennis. Definitely the fact that there is so many of us. Myself, when I was younger, looking up to the girls who were like maybe five years older than I was, you can just see them doing so well.
“It’s nice that we’re from such a small country and we have so many good players.”
Noskova’s win was her 19th on grass in the last two years, more than any other player on Tour.
“I feel like I’m using my game, my game style on grass, a lot, and it’s paying off,” said the self-confessed nature lover.
(Reporting by Martyn HermanEditing by Christian Radnedge)
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