Now we know all the quarterfinalists of the 4,828,050 China Open. The Marion Bartoli vs. Carla Suarez Navarro quarterfinal was determined yesterday, while after today's third-round matches we know the six remaining members of the final eight: Maria Sharapova vs. Angelique Kerber, Victoria Azarenka vs. Romina Oprandi and Agnieszka Radwanska vs. Li Na.

Second seed Maria Sharapova was the first to advance on Thursday, with an easy 6-0 6-2 victory over Polona Hercog in their first meeting. In other news, on the side of her tennis career, Sharapova is working on spreading her Sugarpova candy products outside the US. Her next destination will be Australia, and what better timing for the launch than ahead of the Australian Open.

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Semifinals are set at the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo: Nadia Petrova vs. Sam Stosur and Angelique Kerber vs. Agnieszka Radwanska.

Nadia Petrova was the first to advance, with a massive 3-6 7-5 6-3 win over Sara Errani in two hours and 36 minutes. The Russian actually won one point less than her opponent in the tense match (101 to Errani's 102), but saved 7 of 12 break points, while Errani saved 7 of 13.

The encounter of Maria Sharapova and Sam Stosur followed. Both started strongly, with 100% of first serves won up to 2-2 40-15 for Stosur in the first set. However, there was an exchange of breaks for 4-4 and it was Stosur who held her serve then and broke Sharapova again in the end, for a perfect conversion of break points and 6-4. Read more »

Grand Slam are always the most exciting venues for tennis glamour and the US Open is the unofficial fashion queen of all the four majors, so let's see what the best brands put on their brightest WTA stars.

Let's start this fashion overview with maybe not the biggest fashion star, but definitely the player who marked this US Open – Kim Clijsters, whose inspiring career has come to a close at her favorite tournament where she had lifted the trophy three times. To honor the Belgian's last event, her clothing sponsor Fila produced a special collection with a symbolic star pattern.

Ana Ivanovic (who reached her first Grand Slam quarterfinal since her title win at Roland Garros 2008), Angelique Kerber (last year's semifinalist) and Laura Robson (besides Clijsters, the biggest story of the tournament) were all sporting Adidas Adizero. The bright yellow Adidas outfits may have ruled the US Open courts, and the three players mentioned here all played the fourth round, but the next brand we'll cover is clothing all the four semifinalists!

Of course, it's Nike! Champion Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova traditionally have both day and night dresses. Serena wore navy and pink with lime details, while Sharapova went for more subtle tones – liquid pink and solid dark without many loud contrasts.

PREVIOUS US OPEN FASHION OVERVIEWS

2011 - A look at the beautiful colors at Flushing Meadows
2010 - Fashion hits and misses of tennis in New York

Victoria Azarenka and Sara Errani prefer separates. The world No.1 is popping in a yellow and black combination, while the Italian, sharing the look with Julia Goerges, wore a pleated navy skirt with pink and yellow stripes and a tank. Read more »

Last week at Montreal Li Na lost a tough three-setter to Petra Kvitova in the final, but this week Li made one crucial additional step and went all the way to the Premier-level Western & Southern Open title, lifting the winner's trophy for the first time since her last year’s French Open triumph, after failing in three finals this season. Could the help of new coach Carlos Rodriguez already be showing results?

Li’s victim in the final was Angelique Kerber, nevertheless, the German has plenty of reasons to celebrate, as last year this time she was playing the qualifying for the International-level Dallas as world No.107, while the Cincinnati result has brought her to No.6 in the world rankings.

In the Sunday’s final, Li found herself 6-1 3-1 down, but in the 24-point eighth game of the second set, after wasting seven break points, Li finally fought her way into turning the match around and from then on she was writing the destiny of the match.

En route to the $385,000 trophy, the ninth-seeded Li defeated Sorana Cirstea in the second round, Johanna Larsson in the third, top seed Agnieszka Radwanska in the quarterfinals, Venus Williams in the semifinals, and eventually fifth seed Angelique Kerber, who made the biggest upset of the tournament by eliminating Serena Williams in the final eight round. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Li Na advanced to the Western & Southern Open final by beating an injury-affected Venus Williams 7-5 3-6 6-1, while Angelique Kerber, who eliminated hot Serena Williams in the quarters, continued to progress, and after ending Serena's 19-0 winning streak, she ended Petra Kvitova's 8-0 stretch with a 6-1 2-6 6-4 victory.

Unfortunately, Venus was not fully fit for the match, as she started feeling back pain shortly before the encounter:

Just in my warmup it was bothering me. I was like 'Oh, no'. I tried to fix it between the warmup and the match, but it didn't work.

Venus piled up five double faults in the first set, including one on a break point to go 3-2 down. She did crawl back to level at 5-5, but Li came out on top in the next two games. In the second set, Venus won five straight games to take the match to the decider, but then rapidly went down in the third set. Venus' serve was limited throughout the match, while in the third set her second serve fell to 63 mph. Read more »

Unexpectedly, it was Venus Williams who continued to progress at the Western & Southern Open, while Serena Williams fell in the quarterfinals, ending her 19-match winning streak with only her fourth defeat of the season.

Serena came to Cincinnati having won 36 of her last 37 matches, but her quarterfinal opponent, Angelique Kerber, was too solid, winning both of her two break point opportunities, while Serena's conversion remained 0%. Serena was 21% better than Kerber on first serve points won, but only 48% of her first serves went in, while she hit just four aces. Kerber, who has played at least the quarterfinals in 12 of 17 tournaments this year, will face Petra Kvitova in the semis. Kvitova is also on a winning streak, 8-0, having won Montreal and now three matches in Cincinnati, her last one a 6-3 7-6(4) victory over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Venus beat Samantha Stosur 6-2 6-7(2) 6-4 for her first semifinal of the year. Venus cruised through the first set, then didn't lose hope after losing the 61-minute second set and wasting the opportunity to serve it out at 5-2 in the third, completing the match while serving at 5-4 in the deciding  set. Next for Venus is Li Na, who took out top seed Agnieszka Radwanska 6-1 6-1.

Additional info: Excited about their triumphs at Wimbledon and the Olympic Games, the Williams sisters will team up for women's doubles at the  US Open.

Fashion info:  Stosur was wearing a custom Asics tennis dress. A dress of the similar cut will be available in 2013, while the orange and gray print will not be available for worldwide customers. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Our guest blogger Omair likes to give WTA players unofficial titles on the account of their performance at big events. Notice how Serena improved from the Biggest Disappointment at Roland Garros, to Grass Empress at Wimbledon, to shortly afterwards become a Golden Empress at the Olympics.

SERENA WILLIAMS – GOLDEN EMPRESS

With her first gold medal in singles at the Olympics, Serena completed her Career Golden Slam, joining Steffi Graf and becoming only the second woman to achieve such a feat. Moreover, Serena did that in style, losing a total of 17 games in six matches. En route to the medal, Serena defeated four players who have ranked world number one at some point (Jelena Jankovic in the first round, Caroline Wozniacki in the quarterfinals, Victoria Azarenka in the semifinals and Maria Sharapova in the final). She also became the only tennis player in history to complete Career Golden Slam in both singles and doubles. With such a strong performance, Serena reinforces her title of grass empress earned during Wimbledon 2012.

MARIA SHARAPOVA, VICTORIA AZARENKA – BRIDESMAIDS

Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Sharapova and Azarenka were both the victims of Serena at the Olympics, and have combined three wins against her in 21 matches.

Sharapova rebounded strongly from her Wimbledon disappointment, however, she lost her plot completely once in the final and managed to win just one game in the most lopsided Olympic gold medal match.

Azarenka seemed determined to be on the course to win gold, but just like at Wimbledon, it was Serena who stood in her way. Azarenka had a chance to avenge her Wimbledon loss, but went down meekly, winning just three games against Serena. Read more »

Kim Clijsters will likely end her career with a perfect 6-0 record against fellow Grand Slam champion and former No.1 Ana Ivanovic. In their today's encounter at the London Olympics, Clijsters won 84% of points on first serve (69% of her first serves got in) and defeated the 11th-seeded Ivanovic 6-3 6-4 in just 58 minutes, despite hitting 10 winners less than the Serb. The third-round victory came pretty smoothly to Clijsters and only in the beginning of the second set she faced bigger challenges, when double faults at 0-1 eased Ivanovic's way to break points. However, Clijsters saved them, held her serve and finished the match without losing service games.

Venus Williams wasted three set points and a 5-1 lead in the first-set tiebreak, while in the second set she blew a 3-1 lead to fall to this year's Wimbledon semifinalist Angelique Kerber 7-6(5) 7-6(5). Kerber is making her Olympic debut, while Venus is looking for a record fourth gold medal in the Olympic tennis, which she still has a shot at thanks to the women's doubles alongside sister Serena.

Serena Williams lost just one game, 6-1 6-0, in the third round against Vera Zvonareva (the only women's singles medalist from the Bejing Olympics who played this year, as Elena Dementieva and Dinara Safina have retired), Petra Kvitova beat Flavia Pennetta 6-3 6-0, Victoria Azarenka, after saving set points, advanced with a straight-set victory over Nadia Petrova 7-6(6) 6-4, and Maria Kirilenko took out Julia Goerges 7-6(5) 6-3. (source: The Washington Post, photo: © Neal Trousdale)