Monday at the Rogers Cup was a bad day for seeded players, as only one advanced and three of the other four fell to qualifiers in their opening matches.

The first in action was the winning seed, Samantha Stosur, but even her victory came only after she lost the first set 6-4 to Ayumi Morita. Final score: 4-6 6-2 6-3.

No.9 seed Marion Bartoli had won 19 of her last 23 matches, including her Eastbourne title, and had a perfect 4-0 head-to-head record against Galina Voskoboeva, but in the first round of the Rogers Cup the Kazakh qualifier was better and took Bartoli out 6-3 6-3. It is Voskoboeva's first Top 10 victory and at the recent Baku Cup she played her first WTA semifinals. Read more »

Traditionally, Women's Tennis Blog is doing Grand Slam fashion overviews, so let's see what major sports brands have on display at Roland Garros 2011.

World No.1 Caroline Wozniacki brought nothing new to the fashion table of Roland Garros – the 20-year-old Dane, who bowed out of the tournament in the third round already, wore the adidas by Stella McCartney Ruffle Dress which she debuted at Indian Wells in March.

Adidas impressed with an array of bright colors that perfectly contrast/match the red clay of Roland Garros. Above you can see the variety of pink, orange and green combinations on Daniela Hantuchova, Sorana Cirstea, Andrea Petkovic, Maria Kirilenko and Arantxa Rus. Here you can read more about Adidas' French Open collection.

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Defending champion Francesca Schiavone resisted the challenge of Jelena Jankovic and advanced to the quarterfinals of Roland Garros. On her tournament debut ten years ago she reached the quarterfinals, and together with her last year's title, this is her third appearance in the final eight of Roland Garros.

The fourth-round match between Schiavone and Jankovic was tense and could have gone either way, but the Italian's good serves and aggressiveness gave her that extra something needed to defeat the Serb who played Roland Garros semifinals in 2007, 2008 and 2010.

The world No.10 Jankovic has a lot to regret, at times she was leading in the third set, and both the players were pretty much equal, but the moment Jankovic allowed Schiavone to break her at 4-4, her fall was strongly suggested. Schiavone didn't let the opportunity slip away and won the match 6-3 2-6 6-4.

Schiavone's opponent in the quarterfinals will be Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who advanced with a 7-6(4) 2-6 6-2 victory over third seed Vera Zvonareva. With top seed Caroline Wozniacki and second seed Kim Clijsters already out, this is the first French Open since 1968 that none of the top three seeds are in the quarterfinals! World No.4 Victoria Azarenka is now the highest-ranked player left in the draw.

Pavlyuchenkova, who is 11 years younger than her next opponent Schiavone, will be playing her first Grand Slam quarterfinal. (photo courtesy of our reader Tony)

In a battle of the WTA Tour's most famous defensive players, world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki defeated ninth-ranked Jelena Jankovic to reach the semifinals of the Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome. After each of them won one set, a string of service breaks followed in the decider, seven of them precisely, and in as much as the first four the server didn't earn a game point! In the eighth game Wozniacki held her serve for 5-3 and then broke Jankovic to win the match 6-3 1-6 6-3.

Wozniacki's opponent in the semifinals will be ninth seed Maria Sharapova, who advanced when Victoria Azarenka retired (Azarenka won the first set 6-4, but retired in pain in the second set after losing the first three games).

The other semifinal will feature Samantha Stosur and Li Na. The sixth-seeded Stosur defeated second seed Francesca Schiavone 6-2 6-4, in a rematch of last year's French Open final. The fourth-seeded Li advanced with a 6-3 6-1 victory over Greta Arn of Hungary. (via WTA Tour, photo by our reader Tony)

Marine of Tennis Notebook has become a regular contributor to Women's Tennis Blog. Now she's making French Open predictions. Do you agree with her?

As we are nearing Roland Garros, tennis enthusiasts are starting to make first predictions about who has got what it takes to win the title. What is interesting about this debate is that there is some hesitation about who to pick as a favorite. The reason is quite simple: No.1 player in the world has won all kinds of tournaments … apart from a Grand Slam.

When Kim Clijsters became a No.1 in 2003, "a No.1 player without a slam" was a new phenomenon in WTA. Her accomplishment was a beginning of the debate which starts off regularly when someone happens to be (un)lucky enough to make it to the top spot "slamless".

The debate opened again with JJ achieving that, and has become pretty intense during the time when Dinara Safina became No.1. We all know what pressure of expectations and constant criticism did with Safina and even though things changed with the arrival of more self-assured Caroline Wozniacki, many people still frown at the No.1 without a Grand Slam crown.

The question "who is the best player in WTA" has become somewhat difficult to answer and therefore it nowadays produces mixed answers, although people tend to select the same couple of names.

So, who is the best player nowadays and who is the most likely to win Roland Garros 2011?

Here are my picks:

1. Caroline Wozniacki– Her performance has shown that she is a No.1 for a reason. Wozniacki goes far or all the way in most of the events she enters and even in Grand Slams rarely leaves before quarterfinals. Read more »