New York - New York is set for a battle of the blondes on Monday with top seed Caroline Wozniacki taking on former champion Maria Sharapova in a US Open fourth-round blockbuster.

The match is a mouth-watering prospect for Flushing Meadows with the winner rewarded by taking pole position for a run into the final in the top half of the draw.

Wozniacki, at 20, is the young challenger.

She staged a surprise run into the final here last year, losing to Kim Clijsters, but in the space of the last 12 months she has rapidly established herself among the elite and is currently ranked second in the world behind only Serena Williams.

Wozniacki is on a tremendous run of form, having won three out of the last four WTA tournaments and is 17-1 since Wimbledon.

Sharapova, three years older, is on the comeback trail this year after a spate of injuries that threatened her career and is still seen as the glamour girl, the highest earning female athlete in the world.

There are striking similarities, especially in their blonde good looks and obvious marketing potential, but on court they are very different types.

Where Sharapova is a sharpshooter who likes to keep rallies down to the brutal minimum, Wozniacki is a patient tactician who runs everything down and forces the errors out of her opponents.

The Dane bristles slightly when asked why she is not more aggressive.

"You know, it's funny. I get asked this question a lot. I play to win, so depends who I play against, depends how I feel, depends on everything the way I'm gonna play," she said after her 6-1, 6-0 third-round defeat of Taiwan's Chan Yung-Jan.

"If I feel like aggressive style of play is the way in this match, then I'm going to do that. If I feel like I need to be consistent and stay back, that's what I'm gonna do.

"I'm playing to win, and it doesn't really matter how, just win and enjoy to be out there."

In turn Sharapova, who breezed past US teen Beatrice Capra 6-0, 6-0, said that it was Wozniacki's all-round abilities and athleticism that were here biggest attributes on court.

"She can run all day and get a lot of balls back and make you hit tons of balls," the Russian said.

"She changes the pace really well and gets her opponents off balance. She does many things well. That's why she's at the top of the game."

The two have played twice before with Sharapova winning in straight sets each time, but both of those games were in 2008 when Wozniacki had just stepped out of the junior ranks.

Asked if Sharapova had been a role model for her growing up, Wozniacki replied in the negative, saying she had been more inspired by Anna Kournikova, the Russian who opened the door for Sharapova in the 1990s before losing her way.

"To be honest, Kournikova was always for me the girl that I wanted to be like," 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."

Sharapova, she added: "She's a fighter. She never gives up. I think that's a great thing about her. But the players that I really admired were Steffi Graf, Martina Hingis -- those were the girls that I really looked up to."