For the second straight year, Wozniacki took to the Ashe court in beginning of the second week, and flourished. Last year, it was walloping Melanie Oudin in straight sets--to the disappointment of everyone--and, this year, it's a victory over former Open champ Maria Sharapova in front of a full house and a national TV audience. Wozniacki dropped more games in this match--only seven--than she has in the entire tournament, but she showed a mental toughness that so few players on in the WTA have shown in the last five years.

Usually, having a no. 1 seed who hasn't won a Grand Slam is prima facie evidence that the women's game is in ruins. We've seen it time and time again here over the last few years. Wozniacki is most definitely the exception. This is someone who is growing up on center court and learning how to win big matches. For every loud grunt, and booming forehand and backhand that Sharapova displayed--proving she has the heart of a champion even if she hasn't pulled her game together quite yet--Wozniacki responded by sending Maria into long rallies (complete with moon shots!) until the inevitable unforced error. Last year, Wozniacki played her semifinal match before a tiny audience at Armstrong, and played an Ashe match before a similarly small crowd this year. Today, with a big crowd for Labor Day afternoon that was decidedly pro-Maria, she didn't betray any big stage nervousness.

But let's go back to those double faults. Sharapova, for a third straight year at the Open, has been undone by her serve. She had nine doubles today, and won only 34 percent of points off her second serve. Three years ago, it was against Aggie Radwanska in the third round. Last year, it was against Oudin in the third round. This year, it's Wozniacki (Sharapova didn't play in the tournament in 2008).

Sharapova said that Wozniacki used the wind really effectively, an unusual compliment. Wozniack is smart. When Caroline said before the match that she admired Martina Hingis growing up, it makes sense. Her stat sheet, like Hingis', is nothing to marvel at. She had 16 winners and 10 unforced errors in a 2-hour match. Low numbers for both. She only had two aces. But like Hingis, she has all the intangibles, plus a great bakchand. And what else is Wozniacki better at, Ms. Sharapova?

"She's much steadier," she said.

"I believe in myself more," said Wozniacki.

And because Wozniacki's style of play is so different from the other top women's players, we have a chance to see some very exciting action at the end of this week.

Barring a collapse, Wozniacki should have a walk to the Finals. She'll likely face either Venus or Kim Clijsters, and those will present enormous challenges, but we're really, really starting to like her chances.

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After her third round victory on Saturday, Wozniacki was asked when she was younger if she wanted to be like Sharapova--the champion, the spokesperson, the celebrity, the whole deal. Wozniacki chose someone else instead.

"Well, you know, to be honest, Kournikova was always for me the girl that I thought was just...I wanted to be like her, definitely, you know," she said. "I thought she was very pretty. She was handling everything really nicely. You saw her everywhere in the commercials. I think I would more go for Kournikova."

O.K, but then certainly Caroline would look up to Sharapova as a player? After all, Sharapova is a three time Grand Slam winner!

"Players that I really admired was, yeah, Steffi Graf, Martina Hingis--those were the girls that I really looked up to," she said.

Anyway, later this afternoon, Sharapova and Wozniacki will face in a fourth round match that might as well be a semifinal. Wozniacki is playing the role this year of the Woman-Who-Is-Ranked-No. 1-But-Hasn't-Earned-It, but she's being dominant so far. She has only dropped 3 games, and won 36 in her first three matches. Sharapova, meanwhile, was a popular pre-tournament pick to win the tournament since the women's side is so wide open and she seems due. It'll be a great match, but I'm expecting Wozniacki to win on national TV, win at Ashe and prove that she's here to stay. And, most importantly, she'll have fun with all the attention. She's going to prove that she's not Dinara Safina, Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic or any other women's player who was ranked no. 1 and hasn't been able to capitalize on it.

And Mardy Fish is beginning to go on a run like he did in 2008. He won in front of a full-house at Armstrong to advance to the fourth round where he takes on the winner of tonight's Blake and Djokovic match.

Wozniacki and Sharapova absolutely dominated in their matches and that sets up a deliciously exciting Round of 16 match. Wozniacki is the world's no. 1--even though she has never done better in a Grand Slam than being a finalist at last year's U.S. Open--and will take on Sharapova, a former Open champion. We'll be sure to take a close look at the match that may be a de facto Final for Monday afternoon.

When we asked Cole Haan CEO Dave McTague to tell us how the Sharapova collaboration came about, he began at beginning: "Well, Maria started her tennis career as a young girl..." he said. (Skip a few years, and this led to a partnership with Nike and eventually with his own company.) It's a versatile collection of boots, heels, flats, and bags; we're betting the bestseller will be the Air Bacara, a ballet flat with a laced-up back, which also happened to be in the gift bags. (Gentlemen got loafers.)

The photographer and blogger Todd Selby photographed the campaign, and also created some illustrations of things he and Ms. Sharapova find inspiring; these, apparently, include cupcakes, cowboy boots, and pigeons. The cupcake is one item on which their tastes converge: "I love cupcakes! I'm a foodie guy, so any kind of food anything, I'm into." Mr. Selby will start shooting his first film this week on just that subject: "It's going to be about some guys who do some really interesting stuff with food!" he said enthusiastically, if a bit elliptically.

We asked whether Mr. Selby could recommend any restaurants that hadn't been hyped to death. "I encourage people to not worry about that kind of thing," he said—a healthy attitude! "If you like it, then who cares? Who cares that it's been in every magazine or whatever, or if it was in every magazine six months ago? Like, whatever, who cares?" he continued, perhaps unconsciously channeling Fred Armisen's Saturday Night Live impression of The View's Joy Behar.

The Transom stopped by the bar to grab an individually-sized Champagne bottle and a gigantic multicolored lollipop before heading out onto the terrace to catch some air, where we overheard someone casually introducing The Official Filthy Rich Handbook author Christopher Tennant and publicist/essayist Sloane Crosley.

We seized the opportunity to tell Ms. Crosley how much we liked her most recent book of essays, How Did You Get This Number, which came out in June; she graciously thanked us, after offering us "one American dollar" to beat up someone, anyone at the party with the huge lollipop. (We couldn't decide who the victim should be.) She, lucky girl, has already read the new Jonathan Franzen book that we can't seem to go anywhere without hearing chatter about. "I've already read Freedom. It's fairly amazing. It's really, yeah, it's wonderful. My old editor went to FSG, and I emailed him and I was like, 'I want you guys to make t-shirts that say Team Patty.'" We laughed along, pretending to know what that meant. (Some of us have to wait until books come into McNally Jackson to read them!)

Ms. Crosley said she follows her own publicist advice when it comes to reading her reviews: "I always tell my authors—especially if you write short stories or essays or, God love you, poetry and it actually gets published—if everyone hates the same story or objects to the same story, you're in trouble. But it's pretty easy to write it off if it's like, 'By far the weak point in the collection is blank' or 'By far the best essay is blank,' and it's always different... That's a matter of opinion."

A tough, worldly outlook—that's something the Transom can get behind! "I don't know if I have such a great thick skin, or if I've just worked in the skin shop for so long, but I understand how it works," she continued. Wait, so the skin shop in this analogy is the... publishing industry?

"No, I mean the shop where people sell skin," Ms. Crosley deadpanned, perfectly. We think she just named her third book!

Sharapova is in many ways representative of women's tennis over the last few years. She's a player with inestimable talent, she's got three Grand Slams in her back pocket. But because of injuries--and arguably, indifference--she hasn't become the player we quite thought she would.

A few minutes after Sharapova entered the locker room, Melanie Oudin headed toward the women's locker room. She smiled brightly and gave a forceful high-five to the security guard standing outside the door.

At the moment, it appears she's been the breakthrough talent the women's game has been waiting for.

For the last three years that we've been covering the Open, we've never seen a first week tournament-stopper quite like this match. When Oudin finally hit a forehand winner that will--even more than her win over Dementieva--establish her as a national name, the entire press room stared at televisions and marveled at a celebration on court. It was an event. 

In many ways, it was a match Sharapova gave away. She hit into a staggering 21 double faults. She gave Oudin 26 chances to break her serve. (Oudin converted a relatively low 31 percent of them.) But Oudin didn't go away. She wasn't unnerved, even though she was playing on broadcast television with raised expectations and against a former champion. Though Oudin herself was broken 8 times, she broke Sharapova 8 times and found herself staying around in points long enough for Sharapova to finally make a mistake (63 unforced errors).

When Dementieva was struggling against Oudin, she tried outpower the 17-year-old Georgian. That didn't work. Oudin's game and strategy didn't give under the pressure of louder grunts and harder forehands. And for today, that's essentially all Sharapova had to offer.

Oudin is starting to make us believe that she can actually make a real run at this tournament now. Next up: Petrova. After that: Kuznetsova. They're both eminently winnable matches. In the semis? Maybe Safina.

For the first time since the 1997 U.S. Open (or, perhaps, the 2004 Wimbledon when Sharapova won) when Venus Williams shocked the world and reached the finals, it feels like we've got something really special on our hands.

She even sounds different. When players like Ana Ivanovic or Novak Djokovic were making their own names, they were asked what their professional goals were. They gave very manufactured, PR-ready responses: "I want to be the number one player in the world."

After today's upset, when Oudin was asked in an on-court interview what her goal ranking was, she said, "If I keep playing like this, I can get as high as...anything!"

Roger Federer v. Lleyton Hewitt; Ashe, 11 a.m.:

Now, this really shouldn't be much of a match, but you know, it's two Grand Slam winners going up against one another and it's the first real "test" on paper that Fed will have to face. Plus, more Anna.

Novak Djokovic v. Jesse Witten; Armstrong, 11 a.m.:

As Novak tries to rebuild his image here in the City, he'll have to go up against a formidable opponent: The Witten Wall.

Melanie Oudin v. Maria Sharapova; Ashe, Early Afternoon:

It'll be like the 90s! An American 17-year-old underdog (and now, an instant star) versus a player who has been here before and has won before. Sharapova said two nights ago that Oudin had clear weaknesses in her game that Elena Dementieva didn't exploit. We'll see, Maria! And  remember, the last time Sharapova played in an Open, she lost in the third round on a Saturday afternoon to a 16-year-old.

Fernando Verdasco v. Tommy Haas; Armstrong, Early Afternoon:

Of all our featured matches this one might be the most evenly fought. Also, watch for Sara Foster, our favorite superfan.

Robin Soderling v. Sam Querrey; Grandstand, Mid-Afternoon:

Querrey is probably the favorite going into this, but it would be a big step for his career to knock off the French Open finalist.

John Isner v. Andy Roddick; Ashe, Late Afternoon:

The battle of the Americans. Roddick is the great American hope for this tournament, but the crowd will give Isner a big push. Isner said the other night that his fitness level isn't as good as Roddick's, so he'll have to take a gamble or two. Use the height!

Shahar Peer v. Svetlana Kuznetsova; Grandstand, Early Evening:

The Israeli Peer always has strong crowd support here in New York, and this has all the indications of a trap game for Kuznetsova.

The night matches turned out to be less eventful than the crowd issues. Maria Sharapova's shoulder looked just fine as she easily did away with Christina McHale (of New Jersey!), 6-2, 6-1. And Andy Roddick followed up with a rather sleepy victory over Marc Gicquel, 6-1, 6-4, 6-4.

In one of the most intriguing, raucous matches of the day, which stretched into the evening session, Taylor Dent, a 28-year-old American who left the tour for more than two years with a serious back injury, defeated Feliciano Lopez, 4-6, 7-6 (8-6), 6-3, 7-5. It was an emotional return to the Open for Dent, who last played here in 2005, when he reached the third round.

He described the feeling to reporters as “ecstatic." Doctors were unsure Dent would ever play tennis again, and it’s not too long since he was mulling putting the game aside for good and getting his real estate license.

“I was going through such a bout of almost depression at that stage that doing work was really tough on me, too,” Dent said. “I said, Let me find something fun. I stumbled upon a computer game that my buddy turned me on to. That actually kind of saved me in a way because I was able just to escape to another place and not think about the situation I was in.” The game? “World of Warcraft.”

Second-seeded Andy Murray advanced to the second round, too, in a dull, workmanlike match against Ernests Gulbis of Latvia, 7-5, 6-3, 7-5. Gulbis is talented, displaying what John McEnroe described on ESPN as “flashes of brilliance,” but he doesn’t have the consistency yet to beat the very top players.

Maria Sharapova, who won the Open in 2006 but didn’t play here last year, sailed into the second round, defeating Tsvetana Pironkova, 6-3, 6-0.

Sharapova, the 2006 U.S. Open champion, has been plauged by a shoulder injury that has been affecting her for over two years now. She missed last year's U.S. Open as well as this year's Australian Open, she got torpedoed in the quarters at the French this year and lost in the second round at Wimbledon.

She used to represent the future of the game. With a ranking that is now 31st in the world, we were curious: Is it just the injury? Or are we watching her game spiral into full decline thanks to that shoulder injury?

"The shoulder changed her serving motion," he said. "When you have a muscle memory of 15 years serving one way and at age 22 you have to make a change in your swing motion, that's not the easiest thing to do. The shoulder is evidently okay."

We'll see if she works her way around tonight. She plays her first Open match in two years when she steps onto Ashe to take on Tsvetana Pironkova at 7 p.m.

As we were going to press Tuesday night, Maria Sharapova was expected to be lifting a glass to Frank Gehry at the Cooper Square Hotel. Both have contracts at Tiffany & Co—Mr. Gehry to design jewelry, and Ms. Sharapova to look pretty wearing that jewelry. We’re not precisely sure what they’ll talk about, but since Mr. Gehry backed out of Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project and Ms. Sharapova hasn’t been doing much of anything on a tennis court recently, we’re sure those two have had time to think up some stuff!

On Wednesday morning, Aug. 26, Ms. Sharapova, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams will be at the Bloomberg-inspired pedestrian plaza at 23rd and Broadway, showing off their newest Nike outfits. In the past, these outfits have inspired their share of controversy! Roger showed off his “Darth Federer” look in 2007, donning all black. And then last month, he disastrously showed up in Wimbledon with a chihuahua-size racket bag that was adorned with a little too much gold everywhere. Here’s hoping for a more modest look.

The next day, Mr. Roddick will take the same walk to 53rd Street that Anna Wintour made earlier this week and plop himself on David Letterman’s couch. He’s expected at the W hotel later that night for the BNP Paribas Taste of Tennis, along with fellow players Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the Muhammad Ali look-alike; hottie Tommy Haas; surly Australian Lleyton Hewitt; and tennis queen Billie Jean King. Also Real Housewife Bethenny Frankel and chefs from Public, Hill Country and the Stanton Social. Burp!

The parties wind down Saturday night when Mr. Roddick, Serena and Venus and—remember him?—James Blake are slated to arrive on the rooftop at Skyline Studios on the far West Side for a USTA-sponsored shindig. There will be plenty of Heinekens, and last year’s party went late.

After that, what’s there to look forward to?

Ah, yes, the tennis!