US Open Report: Day 8

As the commentators kept telling us, after today there will only be 8 women and 12 men left in the draw. It's definitely the business end of the tournament and people are stepping up.

2007 US Open finalists Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic continued their strong showings moving on in straight sets. Federer went 13-0 in night matches defeating Jurgen Melzer while Djokovic ended Mardy Fish's incredible run this summer. In the all-French match, Gael Monfils outplayed Richard Gasquet. Finally, 5th seed Robin Soderling recovered from losing the first set to Albert Montanes and winning the next three sets handily. Soderling will next face Federer and I'm sure both would love to avenge their recent losses to the other--Federer took out Soderling at last year's US Open while Soderling took out Federer at this year's French Open; both were quarterfinal matches.

For the ladies, it was bad if you were a former US Open champion. 2002 champion Svetlana Kuznetsova was taken out by Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia while 2006 champion Maria Sharapova was beaten by top seed Caroline Wozniacki. Through the first four rounds, Wozniacki has really carried the #1 seed well, giving up only 10 games in eight sets. Meanwhile, 7th seed Vera Zvonareva dismissed Andrea Petkovic while Kaia Kanepi of Estonia survived getting bageled in the first set by winning the second set tiebreak and dishing out a breadstick of her own in the third set against 15th seed Yanina Wickmayer.

Women's Quarterfinal Preview: Eight different countries are represented this year with Denmark, Slovakia, Estonia, Russia, Italy, United States, Australia, and Belgium have a player in the final eight. The hardest matches to predict is probably the ones in the bottom half of the draw aka Williams-Schiavone and Clijsters-Stosur since depending on the day, they all can be unbeatable or completely vulnerable. Still, I think experience will pull through with both Williams and Clijsters moving on. In the top half, top ten players Wozniacki and Zvonareva should be favored in their respective battle with Cibulkova and Kanepi, but weirder things have happened...