Women's quarterfinals are still yet to take place, as rain washed away matches at the US Open for the second day in a row. It will be fourth successive year that the tournament is extended to the third week.

If the weather conditions improve on Thursday, Serena Williams and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova will play their quarterfinal in Arthur Ashe Stadium, Caroline Wozniacki and Andrea Petkovic will play in Louis Armstrong Stadium, Samantha Stosur and Vera Zvonareva will on the Grandstand court, and Angelique Kerber and Flavia Pennetta will play on Court 17.

As I’m writing this, under the latest schedule and weather information US Open is still stating: "Play will resume Thursday, September 8, at 11 a.m. ET, weather permitting." (via Women Who Serve, photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Dear readers, Florian Meier from OnlineTennisInstruction.com is back to preview the US Open quarterfinals. One of his and actually the world's biggest favorites Maria Sharapova was eliminated early, but Serena Williams is still doing strong. Let's see what Florian's predictions look like now.

US Open quarterfinals preview: Serena still the tournament favorite

We are now at the quarterfinals stage of the tournament and Serena looks almost unbeatable to me at this point (join our poll to vote who has the best chance of shaking Serena's dominance this US Open). Let’s have a closer look at the upcoming quarterfinal match-ups.

CAROLINE WOZNIACKI versus ANDREA PETKOVIC

Wozniacki has had a really good draw so far in this tournament and to me she was not all that convincing in her victory against Svetlana Kuznetsova. I am not sure how strong her form actually is. She was down 4-1 in the second set against Kuznetsova who is also not in her best form at the moment.

Andrea Petkovic looked convincing in her last two matches but she has not faced any really strong players so far in this tournament. Petkovic is also playing with an injured knee but it seems to be holding up fine so far in the tournament. Wozniacki and Petkovic are 1-1 in their career matches. Petkovic won this year on a hard court in Miami and Wozniacki won on an indoor clay court in Stuttgart.
In order to beat Wozniacki you have to be able to get by her with some firepower and be patient enough to work the point a few times. I believe Petkovic has these capabilities. Andrea is fired up like I have never seen her before and I think she is also mentally ready to beat someone like Wozniacki in a Grand Slam quarterfinal.

Assuming that Petkovic’s knee holds up, I pick her as my favorite in a very close match.

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Serena Williams is storming through the US Open draw and her confidence, stability and power make me wonder if there is any player on the Tour that could beat this Williams. Therefore, instead of doing a regular poll on who your favorites for the US Open title are, I am asking you whether you think Serena has a major threat en route to the title?

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In brackets there is Serena's head-to-head record against players and as you can see she's leading each one of them. In her first tournament after a year-long absence, Eastbourne, Serena lost to Vera Zvonareva 3-6 7-6(5) 7-5 and in August she played Samantha Stosur, in the Toronto final, and won 6-4 6-2, one of her two Premier titles in five tournaments she played since her comeback in June.

In the quarterfinals of the 2011 US Open Williams plays Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who eliminated Jelena Jankovic and Francesca Schiavone from the tournament. Williams' possible semifinal opponent is world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Top-ranked Caroline Wozniacki cruised through the first three rounds of the US Open losing only 12 games and now she’s in the quarterfinals after a 6-7(6) 7-5 6-1 victory over 2004 champion Svetlana Kuznetsova.

In the first set both players had their serves broken three times and even though Wozniacki was the first to lead in the tiebreaker, 5-2, Kuznetsova came out of the opening set victorious, despite her 31 unforced errors. In the second set Wozniacki came back from a 4-1 deficit to take the match to the third set, through which she cruised.

Kuznetsova actually finished the match with a total of 78 unforced errors to Wozniacki's 26. Of course, Kuznetsova hit more winners, 40 to her opponent's 20.

Wozniacki’s opponent in the quarterfinals will be tenth seed Andrea Petkovic who defeated Carla Suarez Navarro 6-1 6-4 in the fourth round.

Additional info: Wozniacki, as well as Maria Sharapova, are the first players to qualify for the TEB-BNP Paribas WTA Championships, to take place in Istanbul, Turkey. It will be Wozniacki's third straight year to play the elite year-end Championships, while Sharapova hadn't qualified since 2007. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Besides the second set against Victoria Azarenka in the third round, Serena Williams has faced no real challenge at the US Open, including her today's encounter with Ana Ivanovic – the former world No.1 was just another unmemorable target on Williams' surge through the tournament.

The 28th-seeded Williams is already in the quarterfinals, having dropped her serve only two times on the way. Knowing the state of Williams' and Ivanovic's tennis, Ivanovic can unfortunately be happy that she was one of the two players who broke the American's serve this US Open and that she won seven games during the fourth round match, 6-3 6-4.

Next for Williams will be first time US Open quarterfinalist Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova who defeated seed No.7 Francesca Schiavone 5-7 6-3 6-4 in two hours and 41 minutes after they committed a combined 21 double faults and dropped serve 16 times. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

New York and fashion go hand in hand, and tennis outfits are no exception, especially when we have a high-profile event such as the US Open. So let's see what the manufacturers of tennis clothes prepared for our WTA stars and there is no better way to start than with American Bethanie Mattek Sands who integrated patriotism in her attire.

Don't you love the American-flag tube socks and the accompanying red shoes? Bethanie looks awesome in her Under Armour outfit with accessories that perfectly match the US Open occasion.

Bethanie is known for her experiments with fashion and her most recent took place before and during Wimbledon, when she incorporated tennis balls in her player party and on-court outfits.

Venus Williams shocked with her EleVen US Open dress as much as she did with her subsequent abrupt withdrawal due to a long-undiagnosed syndrome.

Top seed Caroline Wozniacki and Stella McCartney absolutely failed to inspire with a white dress much more suitable for Wimbledon. Why not use colors for the US Open when you can?

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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)