Ann Li has already shown she can make Linda Noskova work, and that is why their US Open third-round meeting drew attention on day six. Li stretched Noskova to three sets in their only WTA meeting this season, a line that mattered more than the clean path Noskova had taken through the first two rounds.
Noskova arrived after cruising past Volynets and Tararudee, but the run did not erase the memory of how tightly Li had matched her earlier this year. That is the detail that changes the read on this match. If a player has already forced a new Grand Slam champion into three sets once, the next meeting is no ordinary follow-up.
The setting helps explain why the matchup drew such focus. The US Open day six schedule included eight third-round matches, and this one sat among the more closely watched because Noskova was still adapting to life as a new Grand Slam champion. That made her look strong on paper, but not untouchable.
Li’s case rests on more than one good showing. The preview view was that her resilience and baseline consistency could turn the match into something stubborn and long, which is exactly the kind of problem that can unsettle a favorite who has been moving through a Grand Slam draw with confidence. Noskova’s previous wins did not remove that possibility; they only raised the bar Li would have to meet again.
That is the friction in the matchup. Noskova may have been the more established name in the run-up, but Li had already proven she could push her into a deciding set, and that earlier meeting makes it hard to treat this as a routine third-round assignment. For Noskova, the question was whether clean form from the opening rounds would hold once Li started extending rallies and making her earn every hold.
What happened next would tell the real story. If Li could reproduce the pressure she had already found once this season, the match could stretch beyond the comfortable script Noskova had written in the first two rounds. If not, Noskova would move through another test without surrendering control. Either way, the earlier three-set battle made this one worth watching to the end.
