MELBOURNE, Australia(AP) Whatever Maria Sharapova does at the Australian Open, she figures it'll be better than what she was doing last January when she should have been defending her title here.
Sharapova was watching the season's first major on television from her home in Florida last year, tending to her injured right shoulder.
I got to watch a lot of it because it was around 5 or 6 p.m. back home that the coverage started,'' the 2008 Australian Open champion said Saturday.I remember ... my little TV control room. It was many months after I had the surgery, so I was actually excited to watch the tennis.''
Sharapova was sidelined for 10 months after the operation, leading up to May of last year. First up, she missed the Beijing Olympics and the U.S. Open in 2008, a period she called ``tough.''
``After a while, I pretty much got over it ... the pity party was over, and I just started appreciating the game and I wanted to watch it on TV, whereas a few months before that I necessarily made it a point to turn it off,'' Sharapova said.
It would have been easy to feel sorry for herself the way 2008 ended, particularly after the way it started: a 27-2 record before the French Open, and the Australian Open victory for her third major title.
At Melbourne Park, she defeated Lindsay Davenport in the second round, top-ranked Justine Henin in the quarterfinals, Jelena Jankovic in the semis and Ana Ivanovic in the final.
Sharapova returned to the No. 1 ranking on May 19 of that year, the week after Henin suddenly retired. After losing in the second round at Wimbledon, she withdrew prior to her third-round match at Montreal with a right shoulder injury that eventually caused her to miss the rest of the season.
She dropped out of the top 100 during her layoff, but her return last May started a streak of 31 wins in 40 matches that helped her improve to No. 14 in the year-end rankings.
Sharapova knew during her lengthy layoff that tennis was what she wanted to do with her life.
If it was something bad, if I didn't have great thoughts about it, I think it would have been a lot tougher to come back,'' the 22-year-old Sharapova said.There's so many ways out during that period of time ... excuses you could make to not want to be back out there. There was never really that thought in my mind, that I didn't want it again.''
She spent the offseason doing more rehabilitation work.
The shoulder is pretty sensitive to making sure you have the right amount of tennis, but also making sure you have the right amount of strength,'' Sharapova said.There was a very fine line trying to get as much tennis as I needed to get better, but also being smart about how much I did.''
Sharapova played an exhibition tournament in Hong Kong before heading to Melbourne for practice this week.
She's unsure how she'll do this year.
I wish I could tell you who's going to be sitting here in a couple of weeks, but I can't,'' Sharapova said.Obviously everyone's coming off of the offseason, so everyone's feeling fresher than we do during the year.''
Sharapova's first-round match is against fellow Russian Maria Kirilenko, whom she leads 2-1 in three career WTA meetings.
We kind of grew up together playing junior tournaments,'' Sharapova said.We know each other's games really well.''
Sharapova predicts Henin's return, the resurgence of U.S Open champion Kim Clijsters, also back from retirement, and the depth of talent in the WTA will lead to a strong year for women's tennis.
I honestly hope that this will be one of the most exciting years,'' she said.You have the story lines of the comebacks. I hope that we can create great rivalries between each other and good matches.''