MIAMI -- As the old cliché goes, never meet your idols. But if your childhood idol is two-time Grand Slam winner Petra Kvitova, you can throw that adage out the window.
On Saturday, 18-year-old Czech Linda Noskova will face her idol for the first time in the second round at the Miami Open. Playing in her Miami debut, Noskova earned a 6-3, 6-4 win against Lucia Bronzetti in the opening round. When the prospect of facing Kvitova was raised in her postmatch interview, Noskova smiled with anticipation.
"She's definitely the one that I looked up to when I was a kid," Noskova told WTA Insider. "It's going to be a very fast match, a lot of winners from me and her. I will just try to stay as close to her in aggressiveness.
"I think I definitely saw her in Fed Cup and winning a Grand Slam, then I read a book about her in Czech. I was a kid so it was someone big. Now I'm meeting her and playing her. It's crazy."
'A dream come true': Get to know Linda Noskova
Few teenage players would even deign to assume they could keep up with Kvitova's pace of shot, but Noskova is the rare exception. Having started the season ranked No.91, she is up to No.51 after a strong spring hard-court season.
Armed with easy power from the baseline, Noskova began her season by running through her draw at Adelaide 1. She posted two wins against Top 10 players in Ons Jabeur and Daria Kasatkina and saved match points to beat Victoria Azarenka to make her first Hologic WTA Tour final.
She followed that up with a quarterfinal win in Lyon and tallied back-to-back victories in her Indian Wells debut two weeks ago.
"I definitely enjoyed the start of this year," Noskova said. "Obviously a lot of great matches, great tournaments, great places. I didn't think I would enter these tournaments as fast as I did. So it's just really enjoyable every match I play.
"I think that when I play good and feel great I can play with the highest ranked players and players that are winning the Grand Slams and going far in the end. But I have to stay consistent because otherwise I'll be going up and down and I don't want that."
With the spring hard-court season winding down, Noskova says she's looking forward to the clay, which is something she would not have said three years ago. But Noskova has proved to be a tough out on clay.
Last season, Noskova won an ITF W100 event on clay and came through qualifying at Roland Garros to push Emma Raducanu to three sets in a memorable first-round match.
"I feel like I never really liked clay until 2021 when I had some great results in juniors and ITF tournaments," Noskova said. "That really started my relationship with clay.
"Of course, French Open is a big part of it. I had some big results there as well. So I'm looking forward to it."
