Venus Williams denied the US Open spectators a thrilling second round match against Sabine Lisicki by pulling out with an unspecified illness which was later defined as an autoimmune disease, more specifically - Sjogren’s Syndrome, which affects energy level, causes fatigue and joint pain.

I enjoyed playing my first match here and wish I could continue, but right now I am unable to. I am thankful I finally have a diagnosis and am now focused on getting better and returning to the court soon.

The final Grand Slam of the season was Williams' only fourth tournament of the season. On top of that, she has now left two of the four with a retirement.  Read more »

Now that we've seen the kiss and read Rory McIlroy's statement that we can call Caroline Wozniacki his girlfriend, Caroline revealed the things she enjoys in the relationship with her golfer boyfriend – they are both professional athletes and each of them has something the other one is yet to achieve. The slamless Wozniacki would like to match the 22-year-old Rory's US Open title.

I'm definitely trying to keep up. He has something I'm looking for and I have something he's looking for. He wants to be number one, so it's good to have something on each other.

The 21-year-old Wozniacki, who has been on top of the WTA rankings for 46 weeks, was more keen to answer questions about her love life than about her status of a No.1 without a Grand Slam title.

I think we should move on. Ask me about something else, something more interesting.

The top-seeded Dane cruised to the second round of the US Open with a 6-3 6-1 victory over Nuria Llagostera Vives and her next opponent will be Arantxa Rus of the Netherlands. (source: BBC, photo: © Neal Trousdale)

John Bolan, friend, reader and contributor of Women's Tennis Blog, is at the US Open and he sent me his summary of the second day. I wanted to share with you John's view of the exciting first round match between Galina Voskoboeva and Francesca Schiavone.

The player who lost and should have won was Galina Voskoboeva playing against No.7 seed Francesca Schiavone in Louis Armstrong Stadium before thousands of fans.

Francesca started out winning the first four games until Galina got comfortable on the large court. Galina won 9 out of the next 12 games losing the first set 6-3 and winning the second 6-1. The players took an off-court break before the third set. After the rest, Francesca came out firing, winning the first 3 games on her way to a 6-4 victory. Francesca never won more than one game in a row except for those 2 starts in sets one and three.

Galina was the one who looked like the Top 10 player. She won the same number of games (13) as she dominated the stats hitting 32 winners to Francesca's 17 and winning every service stat. She had only one double fault compared to a horrible 16 for Francesca. Galina's groundstrokes were so perfect, but at key times she missed on important points.

After signing a few autographs, Galina received a thunderous ovation as she walked off the court.

The world No.87 Galina also is a top doubles player and is well coached by the former great Russian player, Alina Jidkova. We will be hearing much more in the coming months from Galina Voskoboeva. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Romanian world No.53 Simona Halep enjoyed her first Top 10 victory by eliminating reigning French Open champion Li Na in the first round of the US Open 6-2 7-5.

Following her triumph at the French Open, Li played five tournaments – at three she won only her opening match, at one she won two matches, and now she's left the US Open with no matches won. Doesn't this remind you of Ana Ivanovic?

In the meeting with the 19-year-old Halep, who was playing only her second match at the US Open, the sixth-seeded Li committed 54 unforced errors to her opponent's 19. She did have more winners, 22 to Halep's 5, but that was not enough.

And talking about Grand Slam champions and the 2011 US Open, the tournament is left without all the three this season's Grand Slam winners on the second day already – Kim Clijsters, twice defending champion and winner of Australian Open 2011, couldn't even show up because of a stomach muscle injury, Wimbledon 2011 winner Petra Kvitova lost on the first day to Alexandra Dulgheru, and now Li has left the tournament as well. Such a thing has not happened since 1971! (photos: © Neal Trousdale)

Venus Williams is still coming up with, hm, questionable designs for her tennis outfits and she's still a fan of lace and zippers, this time combined. In her 6-4 6-3 victory over Vesna Dolonts in the first round of the US Open, Venus sported a black dress which looks cute in the front, but when Venus turns her back your eyes pop out.

The black dress has a white lace in the back adorned by a pink zipper!

At Wimbledon, the last tournament Williams played before the US Open, the American fashion designer and tennis champion sported what we called a zipper jumper outfit, and last year at the French Open she worked a lace dress with a nude color shorts which grabbed all the attention.

Because of a viral illness Williams returned to full practicing only last week. Actually, the US Open is only her fourth tournament this season, after the Australian Open, Eastbourne and Wimbledon. (photos: Rob Loud/usopen.org and via Down the Line)

As 2011 Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova exited on the first day of the US Open, another alarm started flashing when 2011 Wimbledon finalist Maria Sharapova lost the first set 6-3 and was broken at the very start of the second by 19-year-old world No.104 Briton Heather Watson.

Watson, the 2009 junior champion, was playing in the main draw of the US Open for the first time and was close to producing the biggest shock of the tournament, as the third-seeded Sharapova is considered one of the Top 2 favorites, beside Serena Williams.

Sharapova's serve was erratic and Watson was keeping up with the Russian's heavy groundstrokes. Still Sharapova managed to grind out a 3-6 7-5 6-3 victory and advance to the second round.

Kvitova famously made 52 unforced errors in her first round loss, but Sharapova committed even more, 58. The Russian balanced them with 41 winner to Watson's only 9 winners. (Philip Hall/usopen.org)

During the weekend Sabine Lisicki won both the first edition of the Texas Tennis Open and the inaugural Sony Ericsson Xperia Hot Shots, a competition which followed six WTA players and gave tennis fans access to their lives through the Sony Ericsson Facebook page and YouTube channel. The German won thanks to the votes of fans on Facebook.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Hot Shots project was launched with Maria Sharapova during the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami in March and the players that took part besides Lisicki were Bethanie Mattek-Sands, Sorana Cirstea, Heather Watson, Alize Cornet and Dominika Cibulkova.

At the US Open which started today, Lisicki, who is seeded 22nd, will play Alona Bondarenko in the first round. (source: WTA Tour)

Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova suffered a speedy exit from the 2011 US Open giving her opponent Alexandra Dulgheru great assistance with 52 unforced errors in their first round match. The second set was especially devastating for the Czech who committed 20 unforced errors to her opponent's only one.

The fifth-seeded Kvitova lost 7-6(3) 6-3 on Dulgheru's first match point and allowed an all-Romanian second round match between the 49th-ranked Dulgheru and 70th-ranked Monica Niculescu.

Kvitova's loss marks the first big upset of the tournament. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Golfer Rory McIlroy confirmed his relationship with Caroline Wozniacki in a press conference and planted her a kiss on the lips in front of cameras and a Yale University football team on Friday night.

Last month's rumors about the two dating surfaced when a tennis fan spotted them in London and shared photos on Facebook. Later McIlroy was attending Wozniacki's matches as a spectator, but their relationship wasn't publicly announced. As DeShawn Besabella reports, Rory confirmed relationship with Caroline in a press conference mostly concerning the state of his injuries sustained at a recent tournament. He told the press that they could refer to Caroline his girlfriend. Caroline still hasn't revealed anything officially, but the public kiss should be considered enough.

As you know, the photos of Rory and Caroline with the football team were revealed before, but this photo of the kiss is a new addition, I saw it only today.

The world No.1 Wozniacki won her fourth successive New Haven Open title over the weekend and is top seed at the US Open.

Professional tennis instructor Florian Meier (OnlineTennisInstruction.com) is back reviewing the favorites for the 2011 US Open (his previous guest post on Women's Tennis Blog was an analysis of Sabine Lisicki's game). Even though world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki won the New Haven Open this weekend, the Dane is not high on Florian's list of favorites. Leaders are Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. Enjoy Florian's introduction to the US Open!

The US Open starts on Monday and it looks like Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova have the best chances for the title. Let’s quickly review the recent action on the women’s tour and then look at the upcoming US Open, which is certainly one of the most exciting tournaments of the year.

The US Open 2011

The US Open Series

Over the last 8 weeks the US Open Series was played out and Serena Williams ended up in first place in the US Open Series rankings. In case she wins the US Open tournament she would receive a $1 million dollar bonus on top of the regular prize money.

Serena is back to top form and did not lose a match in the US Open Series until pulling out of the second round in Cincinnati to rest a troublesome right big toe. She won the tournament in Stanford and the week after she won the Premier-level event in Toronto.

Toronto finals highlights: Serena Williams in top form

US Open Preview

Looking at the upcoming tournament there is no doubt to me that Serena is the favourite to win the US Open.

Since she won the US Open Series, Serena can now compete for the biggest paycheck in tennis history. If she wins the US Open she will collect $2.8 million dollars. She would get $1.8 million for winning the US Open, and a $1 million dollar bonus for winning both the US Open Series and the US Open. I believe this provides some extra motivation for Serena, especially since she hadn’t played for almost a year.

The other player next to Serena that I see with good chances to win the title is Maria Sharapova.

Sharapova has improved consistently over the last few months. I think she has been working really hard in order to put herself in position to contend for another major. She did well in the US Open Series, winning the Premiere-level event in Cincinnati and she also has the belief and the experience that are usually necessary to win a Grand Slam tournament. For her a lot depends on whether she gets her serve going or not. Read more »