NEW YORK, Sept 6 \u2014 Linda Noskova will need every tool in her arsenal against creative powerhouse Aryna Sabalenka this week, \u200bas the Wimbledon champion booked a meeting with the title defender in a delectable U.S. Open quarter-final showdown.<\/p>\n
The Czech sixth seed survived a mid-match fightback from 11th seed Marta Kostyuk 7-5 5-7 6-4 on \u200cSunday to set up the clash of big-hitting Grand Slam winners, sure to be among the hot tickets in Flushing Meadows.<\/p>\n
“She’s very consistent in \u2060whatever she does, if it’s either the serve or \u200bshe’s going into every return that she can \u2060or, you know, just playing so, so solid from the baseline and not being afraid to go on the \u200cnet as well and using \u200csome dropshots or slices, you know, to mix up the rhythm,” said Noskova.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka beat her in \u2060both of their previous two meetings, most recently the Belarusian’s title \u2060run in Indian Wells, and has appeared unstoppable so far in New York, where she has yet to drop a set.<\/p>\n
“The last one in Indian Wells, it was a tough one, a close one, but she did well. She won the whole thing, just as she has been winning here for the last two years,” said Noskova. “I know her game very well. We’ll see what happens. I still have \u200ca day to recover from today and refocus and, you know, prepare \u200bmyself for that.<\/p>\n
“But it’s going to be some fast tennis, I expect.”<\/p>\n
NOSKOVA SURVIVES FOURTH-ROUND TEST<\/p>\n
The Czech will need every bit of that recovery time after a gruelling encounter against Kostyuk that saw her finally seal victory on her sixth match point with an unreturnable serve.<\/p>\n
“I am more than relieved,” said Noskova, who crumpled to the court as she finally got over the finish line. “I feel like a huge rock fell off my heart at the end.”<\/p>\n
The sixth seed used her rock-solid backhand to blunt her opponent’s serve in the opening set \u200band produced a couple of fine forehand winners en route to the decisive break in the 11th game.<\/p>\n
Kostyuk’s troubles deepened in \u200cthe second set as \u200ctwo double faults \u2060and an unforced error handed Noskova a break in the seventh game.<\/p>\n
The Ukrainian slumped over and buried her face in her hands after sending a shot wide in the eighth, but the fans rallied around her, sparking a revival that saw her save two match points and swat a shot past Noskova to pull level at 5-5.<\/p>\n
Kostyuk then \u200cbroke her opponent to love in \u200bthe 12th game to force a deciding set, but could \u200cnot sustain the momentum. Noskova moved \u20604-3 ahead with a \u200bsuperb backhand winner as a frustrated Kostyuk ran out of steam.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York; Editing by Toby Davis \u200band Stephen Coates)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK, Sept 6 \u2014 Linda Noskova will need every tool in her arsenal against creative powerhouse Aryna…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2879,2878,2881,1796,2880,53,54,2883,2884,50,2882,28,2877,2885,2369],"class_list":["post-67717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-cars","tag-classifieds","tag-homes","tag-international","tag-jobs","tag-local","tag-news","tag-radio","tag-salt-lake","tag-sports","tag-television","tag-tennis","tag-traffic","tag-utah","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}