By Pritha Sarkar
LONDON (Reuters) -Amanda Anisimova ended Linda Noskova’s hopes of completing a ‘Czech three-peat’ at Wimbledon on Sunday after the American 13th seed brought out her A-game to end her rival’s barnstorming run with a 6-2 5-7 6-4 victory to reach the quarter-finals.
After Marketa Vondrousova’s and Barbora Krejcikova’s unexpected triumphs at the All England Club over the past two years, 30th seed Noskova would have harboured hopes of following in their footsteps, especially as she was the last Czech standing among the eight who had started in the women’s draw.
However, Anisimova wasted little time in exposing Noskova’s lack of grasscourt craft as she broke the 30th seed for a 2-0 lead with some crisp hitting from the baseline and again in the eighth game to capture the first set with a scorching forehand winner.
Played under a closed Court One roof on a soggy day at Wimbledon, the contest failed to catch fire during the opening set as the majority of ticket holders in the 12,000-capacity arena had abandoned their seats following British hope Cameron Norrie’s nerve-jangling 4-1/2 hour win over Nicolas Jarry.
The smattering of spectators who did stick around saw Noskova, who had won only one match at Wimbledon before this week, find her comfort zone in the floodlit arena in the second set as she broke for a 2-1 lead.
The 20-year-old missed her chance to level the match when she served at 5-4, with Anisimova saving a set point with a mis-hit service return winner en route to grabbing the break back to level at 5-5.
Noskova did not dwell on that near-miss and she broke again for a 6-5 lead before making sure her opponent did not get a look-in on her next set point, firing down an ace to seal it.
Anisimova looked to be on her way out when she fell behind 3-1 in the deciding set but, with her support team telling her to “keep on believing”, she fought back to 3-3 before eventually ending the two-hour tussle on her second match point with a backhand winner.
Anisimova matched her best Wimbledon result by reaching the quarter-finals for the second time and will next meet Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
(Reporting by Pritha Sarkar, editing by Clare Fallon)
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