In the fourth round of the US Open Samantha Stosur and Maria Kirilenko played the longest tiebreaker in the history of Grand Slam women's singles. In the tiebreak Stosur had five match points and saw all of them slip by as Kirilenko won 17-15. The ninth-seeded Stosur recovered from losing the historic set in one hour and 24 minutes and in the final set won the match 6-1 6-7(15) 6-3.

Here's what Stosur said about the tiebreak:

I lost track of the score, I didn't know at one point if I should be serving or receiving. With all the challenges it was super-exciting. The crowd was into it. I couldn't hear myself think.

Stosur's previous match also made history: her 7-6(5) 6-7(5) 7-5 third round victory over against Nadia Petrova was the longest women's singles match at the US Open. In that encounter the Australian wasted two match points in the second set and won in the third set on her fifth match point. Each set lasted more than an hour and the match lasted three hours and 16 minutes.

In the quarterfinals Stosur will play 2010 US Open and Wimbledon finalist Vera Zvonareva, who defeated Sabine Lisicki 6-2 6-3. (via BBC, photos: © Neal Trousdale)

The first week of the US Open has almost come to a close and Adidas-clad Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Maria Kirilenko are both working their way through singles and doubles draws (in singles they are in the fourth round and in doubles in the second). There's one thing you may not have noticed, though: Pavlyuchenkova and Kirilenko are wearing personalised miadidas Barricade Adilibria shoes that you can make your own.

To celebrate these one-of-a-kind shoes, Adidas has lauched a specific auction site and the tennis stars' shoes can go straight from their feet to yours. The idea behind free-bid is for users to tell Adidas how these shoes will inspire them by completing the phrase, "the ones that will".

It took Serena Williams only 17 minutes to lead 5-0 in the first set against fourth-seeded Victoria Azarenka and even though the second set lived up to the expectations of this high-profile meeting, Azarenka exited in the third round of the US Open with a not so pleasant experience.

To have somebody just going at you like that, it's a little bit painful. You try to do your best, but somebody's on fire.

After losing the first set 6-1, Azarenka started playing more aggressively and the second set produced the level of play worthy of a semifinal. Azarenka bounced back with aggression and deep groundstrokes from 3-5 to 5-5, saving match points in both the games she won, and the set went to a tiebreak which Williams won 7-5.

I have to write the scores of Williams' first three wins at the US Open, it's awe-inspiring, especially considering how long she hadn't played and how sick she was: 6-1 6-1 against Bojana Jovanovski in the first round, 6-0 6-1 against Michaella Krajicek in the second, and now 6-1 7-6(5) in the third.

Williams will next face Ana Ivanovic, who made it to the second week with a 6-3 6-4 victory over American wildcard Sloane Stephens.

Top seed Caroline Wozniacki is feeling good about her current game and eased into the fourth round of the US Open with a 6-2 6-4 victory over American Vania King.

In the first round against Nuria Llagostera Vives Wozniacki lost just four games, in the second against Arantxa Rus just two and against the 103rd-ranked King six games. As is usually the case with Wozniacki's matches, she hit less winners than her opponent – 14 to King's 24, and even dropped serve three times in windy conditions, but King made many unforced errors and Wozniacki advanced while bigger favorite Maria Sharapova crashed out in the third round.

King said she would have reconsidered playing both doubles and mixed doubles if she had known she would reach the third round in singles.

Wozniacki's opponent in the quarterfinals will be either Svetlana Kuznetsova or Akgul Amanmuradova. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

It's over: with zero aces, 12 doubles faults and 60 unforced errors Maria Sharapova, the strongest favorite for the title besides Serena Williams, lost to Flavia Pennetta 6-3 3-6 6-4 in the third round of the 2011 US Open.

The Russian said she hadn’t felt comfortable with most of her game and she lost a three-setter the first time this year (she had a 12-0 record in 2011 when the deciding set had to be played). After being down 3-0 and 4-1 in the final set, Sharapova managed to get the score to 4-all, 15-30 on Pennetta’s serve. Then the downward spiral started for the Russian and the 26th-seeded Pennetta won all the remaining seven points to earn one of the biggest victories of her career in two and a half hours.

Of course, the 2006 US Open champion Sharapova didn’t accept the defeat lightly:

It's disappointing to lose in New York. Losing isn't fun for anyone because we work to win. We don't work to try to lose. So when we're faced with a position where we can win and we didn't in the end, it's tough.

(photo: sr_cranks)