When Linda Noskova squandered five match-points and conceded the second set of a drama-filled final against Karolina Muchova, tennis fans of a certain vintage will have been reminded of one of Wimbledon’s more evocative moments, featuring another Czech woman.Jana Novotna’s tears on the shoulder of the Duchess of Kent after throwing away an apparently decisive advantage against Steffi Graf in the 1993 final remains one of The Championships’ most enduring scenes. Noskova was showing worryingly similar signs of a meltdown.Hard to watch“It’s hard to watch,” two-time Major champion Tracy Austin said on the BBC. “We know what that feels like when you start to get tight and you can’t loosen up and then the lead starts to unravel.”Novotna had refused to give up on her dream and earned her cathartic winning moment at Wimbledon five years later. Noskova did not give in to despair either, but she turned her fortunes around even quicker. She went from choking to mastering her nerves almost instantly, which very few players manage to do when so much is on the line.Noskova placed fingers in both of her ears to drown out the Centre Court crowd. She draped one of Wimbledon’s strawberry-red towels over her head. She left the court completely for a bathroom break and splashed cold water on her face. The sight of the Venus Rosewater Dish during her time off the court only stiffened her resolve to “leave my soul on court in the third set”.That she did, staving off break-points at the start of the third set before landing a crucial break and closing the match out with cold-blooded ruthlessness.In a candid admission after the final, she conceded that the pressure-packed situation had overwhelmed her in the second set as the match-points slipped through her grasp across three different games. “My hand kind of froze at certain moments. My feet were not as quick as they had been before,” she said. “Winning it this way, really having to fight for it, having all these ups and downs, it matters a lot. I have to learn a lot from this match.”The ability to come in clutch on the biggest stage is an excellent barometer of an athlete’s temperament. It’s a quality opponents immediately recognise. Muchova, who pushed her young compatriot into revealing her character in the final, described Noskova as a “calm fighter” in the big moments. “She’ll go after every point; she’ll fight for every point, so she’s really competitive. It’s definitely tough to play her on any surface,” Muchova said.On the prowl: Noskova’s ability to seize the initiative paid dividends on Wimbledon’s grass. It’s a quality that works in big moments across surfaces.