US Open: Women's Fourth Round Preview

Caroline Wozniacki [1] vs. Maria Sharapova [14]
Svetlana Kuznetsova [14] vs. Dominika Cibulkova
Yanina Wickmayer [15] vs. Kaia Kanepi [31]
Vera Zvonareva [7] vs. Andrea Petkovic

Francesca Schiavone [6] vs Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova [20]
Venus Williams [3] vs. Shahar Peer [16]
Samantha Stosur [5] vs. Elena Dementieva [12]
Kim Clijsters [2] vs. Ana Ivanovic

We have certainly heard ad-nauseum the past week or so how open the women's draw is especially with the absences of Serena Williams and Justine Henin and looking at the names of the final 16 ladies fighting for the title, I'd have to say they were right. With that said, even without Serena and Justine, this is quite an impressive array of women containing six major champions and three major finalists.

The bottom half of the draw are set to play later today while the top half will play tomorrow on Monday. Most of these match-ups are quite juicy, but the two matches everyone will be buzzing about are the Wozniacki-Sharapova and the Clijsters-Ivanovic matches because of the star-studded names involved. Clijsters is a heavy favorite in her match, even though Ivanovic seems to finally be playing as if her past issues have been solved. The match between Sharapova and Wozniacki is a bit of toss-up since both are showing great form leading to and during this tournament.

As for the other matches, other than Stosur-Dementieva which is another toss-up for a match, the higher ranked player should pull through, but as everyone says, it's an open draw.

Predictions: I'll pick the ladies who I predicted to make the quarterfinals before the tournament started. I'm proud to see six of my eight still around. I'll pick Zvonareva and Schiavone to replace my initial picks of Radwanska and Azarenka (both of whom I also predicted to reach the semifinals... d'oh!).