Linda Nosková, a U.S. Open rising star, has an unusual way of dealing with crowd noise

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She had just squandered two match points in the fourth round of the U.S. Open, and the crowd inside Louis Armstrong Stadium began to roar. So Linda Nosková, a 21-year-old rising star from the Czech Republic, used a simple strategy to regroup.

She stopped alongside the baseline, turned her back to the court — and her opponent, Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk — and plugged her ears with her fingers.

It looked a little unusual, as if Nosková, the No. 6 seed, was trying to escape the din and ignore everything around her, like someone plugging their ears and yelling “la-la-la” during an argument.

It was also by design, a mental strategy that surfaced this summer during the Wimbledon women’s singles final, when Nosková won her first Grand Slam in a tense three-set match over Karolína Muchová.

Nosková nearly unraveled during a second-set meltdown against Muchová, wasting five match points. She coped by following the advice of her coach, Tomáš Krupa, who had told her the night before the match to take moments to herself if she needed.

She plugged her ears, blocked out the noise and took a well-timed bathroom break, surviving in three sets.

“The crowd was so loud,” Nosková told reporters after her Wimbledon victory. “And it was after the games that I have lost, so I was just trying to be with myself for a little time.”

Linda Noskova puts fingers in her ears as Centre Court erupts in cheers after Karolina Muchova broke her when she was serving for the championship. #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/ktmpvBBGOK

— islandtennisgirl (@islandtennisace) July 11, 2026

Nosková plugged her ears again Friday in the third round of the U.S. Open, when she faced American Ann Li and a partisan crowd on Court 17. Again, she triumphed in three sets.

On Sunday, facing Kostyuk, a crowd favorite in New York, she did it a third time.

Was it effective? Well, sort of.

Nosková wound up losing the second set 7-5. But after another bathroom break before the third set, she settled down and managed to survive in three sets again.

“I just had to leave the court,” Nosková said. “There was a lot of noise. But obviously I had to restart.”

For Nosková, the strategy is not complicated. Tennis matches are an emotional roller coaster. Fans can be fickle, and the crowds in New York are particularly loud. Without noise-cancelling headphones to calm herself, she uses the next best thing — her fingers.

Athletes have spoken for years about the need to calm their nerves and eliminate distractions. More than a century ago, two psychologists, Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson, argued that mental or physiological arousal could improve performance — but only up to a certain point.

Too much stimulation could be detrimental.

Every athlete, then, is looking for a way to block out unwanted noise. Yet very few have used such a literal interpretation of the idea as Nosková.

“I feel like those moments, I don’t know if they helped me or not,” Nosková said. “But it was just definitely to keep myself away from all the noise.”

Nosková may need a quiet moment or two again Tuesday, when she faces No. 1 seed Aryna Sabalenka in a quarterfinal, her first at the U.S. Open. But the tactic has already caught the attention of fans and observers.

In an interview after Nosková’s third-round victory, on-court reporter Blair Henley brought up the strategy.

“To sort of get yourself in your own zone, you literally drown out the noise,” Henley said. “You put your fingers to your ears.”

Nosková joked that she needed to.

“Thank you, guys,” she said to the crowd. “You were not really on my side today.”

Nosková is a powerful ball striker and nimble athlete, and she has credited some of her recent success to a sense of freedom on the court. The feeling, she said, allows her to make good decisions.

Sometimes those decisions include hitting the right shot.

Other times it’s taking a moment for herself and plugging her ears.