The prime-time spotlight, a swirling wind and a steadier opponent spelled an end for the darling of the U.S. Open on Wednesday, as 17-year-old Melanie Oudin faced the first seeded player she couldn't topple.

Despite the fervent cheers of a capacity crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium, another teen -- Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark -- proved the stronger competitor and advanced to her first Grand Slam semifinal with a 6-2, 6-2 victory.

With a broad smile, Wozniacki apologized to fans for spoiling such a wildly popular story line by defeating Oudin, who had captivated audiences with her come-from-behind upsets of taller, stronger and more accomplished women, including former No. 1 Maria Sharapova.

Oudin returns to Marietta, Ga., having far exceeded expectations. In a sport increasingly dominated by women who approach 6 feet tall, Oudin made a statement about what's still possible for a self-described "normal kid" who's just 5-6, likes going to the movies and the mall, and plays board games and cards with her grandmother.

And she takes home memories that seem more like dreams -- such as shaking hands with Sharapova and being introduced to Roger Federer, who not only knew her name but knew about the matches she had won.

"For me, I'm a perfectionist, so losing today was a disappointment," Oudin said. "Losing isn't good enough for me. But the whole experience here that I've had is going to take me a long way, I think. I've gained a lot of confidence through this tournament, and I think I can only get better."

Despite Oudin's defeat, the U.S. Open's women's semifinals won't lack for teens who are easy to cheer.

Belgian teenager Yanina Wickmayer has reached her first semifinals in a Grand Slam at the U.S. Open.
In a debut of unseeded Grand Slam quarterfinalists, Wickmayer rallied from 4-1 down in the second set to beat Kateryna Bondarenko 7-5, 6-4 in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Wednesday.

The 19-year-old Wickmayer, ranked 50th, blew a 5-3 lead in the first set and needed five set points to win it. Then she won the last five games, taking the match when 52nd-ranked Bondarenko, the first Ukrainian to reach the last eight in a Grand Slam, slapped a forehand into the net.

Wickmayer will meet another teenager in the semis, either 19-year-old Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, or 17-year Melaine Oudin of the USA. Their match was scheduled for the night session Wednesday.

Wickmayer becomes the second Belgian in Friday's semifinals, joining Kim Clijsters. Clijsters will face defending champion Serena Williams.

She's also the second unseeded player to reach this year's semifinals, joining Clijsters, and the eighth in the Open era. The others were: Elena Dementieva (2000); Venus Williams (1997); Mima Jausovec (1976); Julie Heldman (1974); Helga Masthoff (1973); and Chris Evert (1971).

In a men's doubles semifinal Wednesday, Lukas Dlouhy of the Czech Republic and Leander Paes India, the No. 4 seeds, ousted top-seeded Americans Bob and Mike Bryan 6-4, 3-6, 7-6.

In a women's doubles quarterfinal, Cara Black of Zimbabwe and Liezel Huber of the USA, the top seeds, defeated sixth-seeded Nuria Llagostera Vives and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez of Spain 6-3, 2-6, 7-5.

Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark has upset two-time major champion Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia at the U.S. Open to reach her first Grand Slam quarterfinal.

The No. 9-seeded Wozniacki came back to beat No. 6 Kuznetsova 2-6, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (3) Monday night.

Wozniacki will face 17-year-old American Melanie Oudin next. All four of the women left on their half of the draw will be playing in a major quarterfinal for the first time.

Kuznetsova won the 2004 U.S. Open and this year's French Open.

He may have defeated him 11 times out of 11, but Roger Federer will take nothing for granted when he takes on Robin Soderling in the US Open quarter-finals on Wednesday.

His win streak against the Swede stretches back five years, but Federer says Soderling, a former top junior who has struggled to fulfill his potential on the senior stage, is a changed player this year.

"He has become mentally and physically stronger. And then he knows the game better today than he used to," the top seed and defending champion said.

"These are already three amazing improvements. That's what makes him a great player today."

Federer has good reason to be fullsome in his praise of the 26-year-old Swede as it was his shock win over Rafael Nadal in the French Open that kicked opened the door for Federer to clinch his own immortality in the sport.

Having lost to Nadal four years running in Paris, the feeling was growing that the Swiss star might never complete the career Grand Slam he needed to validate his claim to be the greatest player of all time.

As it turned out, Soderling was the player on the other side of the net on that damp and overcast day in Paris when Federer finally won the French crown.

A month later, Federer regained his Wimbledon title to become the outright Grand Slam title record-holder with 15.

Soderling, who reached the last eight when Nikolay Davydenko abandoned with a thigh strain when trailing 7-5, 3-6, 6-2, admits ruefully that "he beat me a lot of times" but he believes that every dog is due his day.

"We've had a few very good matches, and I had some good chances to actually win in a couple of them," he said.

"So of course, to me, he's the best player of all time, but if I can play well, hopefully I have a small chance."

On paper the Novak Djokovic-Fernando Verdasco quarter-final, also scheduled for Wednesday, is a much more evenly balanced encounter with the fourth-seeded Serb, the 2008 Australian Open champion and the losing finalist here in 2007, going up against the 10th-seeded Spaniard, who has broken through this year with a run into the Australian Open semi-finals.

Djokovic, with new American coach Todd Martin in his corner, agreed that Verdasco was playing the best tennis of his career.

"He has gained a lot of strength. He feels confident on the court," Djokovic said. "He hits the ball very well. He improved his game a lot generally comparing to the last couple of years."

But he feels that his own game is coming around after a slight slump that saw him lose his world No. 3 status to Andy Murray.

"I have had some ups and downs this year, but I believe I can get far in the tournament the way I was playing in the first two rounds and today was very satisfying," he said after his straight-sets demolition of Radek Stepanek in the fourth round.

The other quarter-final ties, which will be played on Thursday, will be decided later Tuesday with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga taking on Fernando Gonzalez, Gael Monfils going up against Rafael Nadal, Juan Martin del Potro against Juan Carlos Ferrero and Andy Murray faced with Marin Cilic.

Kim Clijsters has kept her comeback on track, moving into the semifinals of the U.S. Open with a two-set victory over China's Li Na.

Clijsters is unseeded and making her first appearance at the Open since she won it in 2005. She defeated her 18th-seeded opponent 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.

The Belgian is returning to tennis after taking two years off, during which she had a baby girl. She entered Flushing Meadows unranked because she hadn't played enough matches in her comeback. She will rise to at least the low 50s on the strength of this run.

She added the Li victory to earlier wins over No. 3 Venus Williams and No. 14 Marion Bartoli. Clijsters will face No. 2 Serena Williams or No. 10 Flavia Pennetta in the semifinals.

Defending champion Serena Williams advanced to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open, while Rafael Nadal kept alive his chances of claiming the only major tennis title that still eludes him.

Williams eased past Daniela Hantuchova 6-2, 6-0 at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York before Nadal beat Spanish countryman Nicolas Almagro 7-5, 6-4, 6-4 on the same Arthur Ashe Stadium court.

“It was a difficult match,” No. 3 seed Nadal said in a courtside interview. “I’m happy to be in the fourth round.”

Six-time Grand Slam winner Nadal is playing his first major since he exited the French Open in the fourth round. Unable to defend his Wimbledon title a month later because of knee tendonitis, Nadal lost his top ranking to Roger Federer, who won at Roland Garros and the All England Club to reach a record 15 Grand Slam single titles.

Both Nadal and Almagro received treatment from the trainer on court after the third game of the third set, Nadal for an abdominal problem and No. 32 Almagro for a back issue. “I feel it a little bit,” Nadal said. “I’ll try my best to recover for the next match.”  Nadal, who faced 13 break points and dropped serve five times today, will face France’s Gael Monfils or Jose Acasuso of Argentina for a place in the quarterfinals.

Williams cruised past Hantuchova to set up a quarterfinal meeting with seventh seed Vera Zvonareva of Russia or Italy’s Flavia Pennetta, the 10th seed, who play tonight. “I traditionally play really well in my fourth-round matches,” Williams told a news conference. “I just want to keep this level and just stay focused and play well.”

The American, who’s seeking a 12th Grand Slam singles title, dominated from the outset and won the last 10 games. Williams produced 27 winners, three times more than 24th-ranked Hantuchova, to take an 8-1 lead in meetings against the Slovakian. Australian Open and Wimbledon champion Williams, who has won 29 of her past 30 matches in Grand Slam tournaments, is ranked second on the WTA Tour partly because she’s played only 12 tournaments this year.

Dinara Safina of Russia will keep her No. 1 ranking for at least two weeks even after last night joining former U.S. Open champions Andy Roddick and Maria Sharapova in exiting at the third-round stage. Safina, who has yet to win a major, lost to Petra Kvitova from the Czech Republic 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (7-5) in a match that ended at almost 1 a.m. local time. Roddick and Sharapova were beaten by unseeded Americans John Isner and Melanie Oudin.

In other results today, France’s Gilles Simon retired with a knee injury against former No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain. No. 9 seed Simon trailed former French Open champion Ferrero 2-1 in sets.

Li Na, the No. 18 seed from China, beat Italy’s Francesca Schiavone and former Australian Open finalist Fernando Gonzalez of Chile defeated Czech Tomas Berdych.

Britain’s Andy Murray, last year’s losing finalist, plays American wild card Taylor Dent in the last match of the day.

The opening match at Louis Armstrong Stadium Saturday did two very different things for the players involved. For Novak Djokovic, the No. 4 seed, it kept alive his quest for his first U.S. Open title. For Jesse Witten, ranked 276th, just being there rekindled his desire - not to mention his ability - to continue playing the sport.

"It makes me want to keep playing," Witten said, but even more importantly, "it gives me some money to keep playing. Now I can afford it for the rest of the year, at least."

This was a match between two players who work in the same business but whose professional lives bear virtually no resemblance - although as Djokovic admitted, their skill levels were barely distinguishable Saturday the end, thanks largely to a couple of faulty service games from Witten at the most pivotal times, Djokovic survived in four sets that took nearly 3-1/2 ours, 6-7 (2), 6-3, 7-6 (2), 6-4.

So it's on to the round of 16 for Djokovic, where he'll face 15th-seeded Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic. For Witten, it's on to Tulsa, where he'll recede back onto the challenger circuit and leave behind the packed house that was chanting his name throughout the morning. The U.S. Open ride is over for him and all the college buddies from Kentucky who had been crashing on his hotel room floor this week.

And what will he miss most about the U.S. Open?

"They do the laundry every day," Witten said. "It's really nice."

Witten, 26, won five qualifying matches in five days just to earn a spot in the main draw; the day before qualifying began, Nike cut him from its sponsorship rolls. In his postmatch press conference Saturday someone asked whose logo Witten was now wearing. "This? This is just a white T-shirt," he said. "I bought this, I think it was like 10 bucks. It's comfortable."

ROGER THAT: Five-time defending champ Roger Federer made a mess of the first set but cleaned up from there against Lleyton Hewitt, winning 4-6, 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 in the day's first match at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Hitting shots off his racket frame and spraying them everywhere, Federer, serving with a 4-2, 40-love lead, turned it into a lost first set with a whopping total of 23 unforced errors. But he smoothed it out to beat Hewitt for the 14th straight time and up his Open win streak to 37 matches

NEW YORK — A half-hour after getting past Venus Williams in a three-set tussle at the U.S. Open, Kim Clijsters had her hands full again.

Juggling an energy drink, a bottle of water and a snack, Clijsters was trying to keep an eye on her 18-month-old daughter, Jada, as the tyke scurried around the players' lounge.

Better keep the nanny on call: Mommy's got more work to do at Flushing Meadows.

Playing by far her biggest match since coming back after 2 1/2 years away from tennis, Clijsters knocked off the No. 3-seeded Williams 6-0, 0-6, 6-4 Sunday in a match of wild momentum swings to reach the U.S. Open quarterfinals.

"It's still kind of hard to believe. But then again, I'm not trying to get carried away with it all," the 26-year-old Belgian said. "Just trying to focus on what I have to do, because the tournament's still going. I just want to keep focusing on my tennis."

And some tennis it is. Against Williams, a seven-time major champion, Clijsters displayed the same sort of booming groundstrokes and all-over-the-place court coverage that helped her win the 2005 U.S. Open and briefly reach No. 1 in the rankings before leaving the tour.

Only two mothers have won a Grand Slam singles title; the last was Evonne Goolagong Cawley at Wimbledon in 1980. Clijsters will be in the semifinals if she beats No. 18 Li Na of China.

"With the kind of training that she's put in, I knew this wasn't just for fun," said Clijsters' husband, Brian Lynch, an American who ended his professional basketball career in Belgium when she decided to unretire. "She was trying to make something happen here."

Consider that done, even if Williams appeared slightly hobbled at times by her heavily bandaged left knee, and her mother, Oracene Price, said afterward: "We all know she's just trying to go as far as she can. I don't know if she should have done that."

"I wasn't able to play 100 percent," Williams said.

Still, she went back out on court later Sunday, teaming with her younger sister Serena to win a third-round doubles match. The No. 2-seeded Serena is still defending her title in the singles tournament — hasn't dropped a set yet, even — after taking the last 10 games of a 6-2, 6-0 victory over No. 22 Daniela Hantuchova.

Serena Williams' bid for a 12th Grand Slam title will continue with a quarterfinal against No. 10 Flavia Pennetta of Italy, who saved six match points en route to eliminating No. 7 Vera Zvonareva 3-6, 7-6 (6), 6-0 at night.

Williams-Clijsters was the main attraction Sunday, and the biggest piece of news elsewhere came when Rafael Nadal sought treatment from a trainer for a stomach muscle problem.

The third-seeded Nadal, trying to complete a career Grand Slam with a U.S. Open title, refused to talk about his health after beating No. 32 Nicolas Almagro 7-5, 6-4, 6-4.

"I don't want to talk about injuries," Nadal said. "Sorry. No, no. I am a little bit tired to talk about injuries."

His next opponent, No. 13 Gael Monfils, advanced when Jose Acasuso quit because of left knee pain while trailing 6-3, 6-4, 1-0.

No. 24 Juan Carlos Ferrero, the French Open champion and U.S. Open runner-up in 2003, moved on when his foe, No. 9 Gilles Simon, stopped playing because of a right knee injury, while winners included No. 6 Juan Martin del Potro, No. 7 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and No. 11 Fernando Gonzalez.

Clijsters stepped away from the game in May 2007 after a series of injuries. She got married later that year, and gave birth to Jada in February 2008.

"I'm glad I made that choice," she said Sunday, "because a lot of beautiful things came out of it."

To hear Clijsters tell it, she never gave a shred of thought to ending her retirement until being asked to participate in exhibition matches under the new roof on Wimbledon's Centre Court in May. Eager to acquit herself well, she began working out and practicing — and the desire to compete for real came surging back.

Her first official match was Aug. 10 — a win over 2007 Wimbledon runner-up Marion Bartoli — and because Clijsters only entered two tournaments before arriving in New York, she still isn't ranked by the WTA. She needed a wild-card invitation to be able to play in the U.S. Open, and now is the first such woman to make the quarterfinals.

"She's come back fresh, rejuvenated and just ready to play and eager to play," observed Price, "and seeing the value of it more so than she did when she left."

Clijsters credits her time away with improving her mental strength on the court, and it came in handy on a cloudy, windy afternoon.

Williams got off to an inauspicious start, putting in only 3 of 12 first serves in the opening game, in which she double-faulted twice and sprayed shots wildly. Clijsters took the first six games, Williams took the next seven, then Clijsters the next three.

"Very weird, right?" is how Clijsters described those ebbs and flows.

Indeed, there hadn't been a 6-0, 0-6 start to a women's match at the U.S. Open since 1975.

Clijsters' forehand went away in the second set, then returned with great effectiveness in the third. Consecutive winners off that wing helped her gain the only service break of the final set, one that put her up 2-1 when Williams double-faulted.

With the crowd pulling for the Belgian more than the American, Clijsters erased two break points while serving for the match, then ended it with a 101 mph service winner.

Yes, Mom's still got it.

"Tennis is a great sport, but I'm just happy that we have a family and I can balance both," Clijsters said in an on-court interview, drawing a roar from fans.

After noting that Jada isn't concerned with her wins or losses, Clijsters elicited more yells of support when asked about changes she noticed when returning to the sport.

"I only just started watching tennis at the start of this year, to be honest," she replied. "I didn't really have that much time with a baby running around, and I was happy just to sleep when she was sleeping."

What parent can't relate to that?

Recuperating former No. 1 Rafael Nadal appeared in danger, at times, of being brought to his troublesome knees by German journeyman Nicolas Kiefer on Friday night but trooped through a 6-0, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory to reach the U.S. Open's third round for the fifth consecutive year.

Back on the Grand Slam circuit after being upset in the French Open and shelved by knee tendinitis for Wimbledon, Nadal breezed through the first set, but Kiefer began to display an uncanny anticipation, repeatedly catching Nadal out of position.

Ultimately, though, Kiefer was done in by his unreliable first serve (only 41 percent) and comparatively ragged play (60 unforced errors); Nadal had only 22 unforced errors as yet another night match went beyond midnight, ending at 12:15 a.m.

"Thank you very much for this atmosphere," Nadal told the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd after the match. "I'm just very happy to be here and to be on this run."

Nadal, 23, healthy again but rusty, thus kept alive his pursuit of his first U.S. Open championship, the only Grand Slam tournament he has not won. His deepest run at Flushing Meadows came last year, when he was beaten by Andy Murray in the semifinals.

Nadal, who won three of the four major tournaments before the 2009 French, also ensured that all 16 of the top men's seeds would advance to the tournament's third round for the first time in any Grand Sl

The pint-sized 17-year-old from Marietta, Ga., was always the aggressor against Maria Sharapova. Oudin might have occasionally sent a serve 10 feet long or wafted a forehand to the backstop but Oudin never lost her nerve or her way en route to the fourth round of the U.S. Open.

Oudin, who upset fourth-seeded Elena Dementieva in the third round, knocked out 29th-ranked Maria Sharapova, 3-6, 6-4, 7-5.

Sharapova was once a No. 1-ranked player until the 22-year-old Russian had to undergo shoulder surgery last October. And late in the third set today, Sharapova had to call for the trainer, who spent nearly eight minutes working on Sharapova's right arm.

So far this summer Oudin has beaten two former No. 1 players, Jelena Jankovic at Wimbledon and Sharapova plus her upset of Dementieva, who had come here full of momentum after having won the Olympus U.S. Open Summer series.

And none of that has intimidated Oudin from playing her attacking style and always moving forward.

She also doesn't hide her emotions.

Many winning shots are punctuated with loud shouts, and after her win today she was unabashedly weeping. She isn't embarrassed to have a 15-year-old boyfriend or to say how much she wants to win tennis matches.

"It's all I want to do," she said.

Next up will be 13th-seeded Nadia Petrova, who beat Zheng Jie of China, 6-4, 6-1.

Oudin's winning point was typically all-out. After she and Sharapova had avoided holding serve for six consecutive games, Oudin stood poised to serve for the match. The second point was a double fault that made the score 15-15. But that was the last point Oudin lost.

Two deep Oudin forehands forced Sharapova into a netted forehand; a similar series of ground strokes made the score 40-15. As the crowd roared and the umpire asked for quiet, Oudin stepped off the service line, then she bounced the ball once, twice, then raised her arm and served.

For most of the third set Oudin had been registering in the 90s on the speed gun. This serve hit 101 miles an hour. Sharapova pushed the ball back where it landed short and sat there waiting for Oudin to pound out a winner. Oudin did just that.

Earlier in the day, Roger Federer lost a set to Lleyton Hewitt, and while the five-time defending champion was committing 42 unforced errors midway through the third set, while he was netting casual volleys and framing nonchalant forehands it seemed as if a major upset could be happening.

Except this is Federer, with his record-breaking 15 major championships and a diabolical way of crushing an opponent's tiny moment of optimism with the hiss of a 125-mph serve deep into the corner or a snappy backhand up the line.

So after Hewitt won the first set of this U.S. Open third-round match today and gave the Arthur Ashe Stadium a jolt with his screaming "Come on," Federer just shrugged, toweled off and went about his business, which was to win 4-6, 6-3, 7-5, 6-4.

"Roger's so good at dictating play," Hewitt said, "of playing on his terms so you're just trying to hang in on his service games. I can't really play the style of tennis I want to play out there against him."

Hewitt, 28, had won here in 2001, but his game has been in steady decline over the past three years, as he struggled with a hip injury that caused him to miss last year's tournament, while in 2007 he had his worst result in New York when he lost in the second round.

For the duration of the first set, though, Hewitt was able to keep Federer a little off-balance by keeping his service returns deep.

Federer will meet either 21st-seeded James Blake or 14th-seeded Tommy Robredo in the fourth round. Blake and Robredo play tonight's final match on Ashe Stadium.