Injury-free Sharapova looks to strong hardcourt season to move up rankings

Maria Sharapova says her ankle injury appears to have healed and she looks forward to a strong hardcourt season leading up to the U.S. Open in September.

On her itinerary is a stop at the Rogers Cup event Aug. 14-20 in Montreal, after tournaments in San Diego and Los Angeles. "I'm excited - I'm finally injury free," the 19-year-old Russian said on a conference call Thursday. "I had a good tournament at Wimbledon and then had a week off, and now I'm training for the U.S. Open series.

"Last year, I went into the U.S. Open with almost no matches. This year, I'm looking forward to building my game and my confidence going into the U.S. Open."

Sharapova has battled through a bone bruise in her right ankle for much of this season.

A year ago, she missed the Rogers Cup, a key pre-U.S. Open event, in Toronto with a back injury, but one week later, the vagaries of the WTA computer gave her a brief hold on the No. 1 ranking for the first time in her career.

She is now ranked No. 4, leading a pack of four Russians who are stuck behind the three women who have dominated women's tennis in the last two years - current No. 1 Amelie Mauresmo of France and Belgians Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin-Hardenne.

Since winning Wimbledon and becoming a tennis sensation as a 17-year-old in 2004, Sharapova has mostly stalled at the semifinals in grand slam events.

This year, she was beaten by Henin-Hardenne in the Australian Open semis and by Mauresmo in the Wimbledon semifinals, but she won a hardcourt tournament in March at Indian Wells - the 11th tournament victory of her career.

In no way does the lithe six-foot-two right-hander feel her career has stalled.

"I'm a work in progress," she said. "Just because I won a grand slam when I was 17 doesn't mean I'm going to get a win at every slam.

"I'm happy. I'm 19, and to be consistently in the top five in the world and getting to the semifinals of grand slams and coming close. . . I've played some really tough matches against Amelie, and Justine."

The Nyagin, Siberia native, who began training at the Nick Bollettieri tennis academy in Florida when she was nine, says her best tennis is still to come.

"I don't feel I'm at the peak of my career," she said. "I feel like there's so much work ahead of me that can make me better. I can't start worrying about the fact that I haven't won a grand slam since (2004).

"Experience has a lot to do with it. I'm playing girls who are 24 years old. They didn't win a grand slam when they were 17, but they're at the peak of their careers at 24 or 26."

Sharapova made her only appearance so far at the Rogers Cup in Montreal in 2004, losing in the third round to Russian Vera Zvonerova. Mauresmo has won the tournament the last two times it was in Montreal in 2002 and 2004.

This year, a WTA tour experiment will allow players to have their coaches with them on court during matches. Sharapova, who is coached by her father Yuri Sharapova and by Michael Joyce, doesn't see it making a big difference.

"I've always been a player who plays by instinct," she said. "I can't worry about what other people want me to do.

"You travel with a coach to help you with things. They scout the players and things like that. But on court, you don't worry about what you're going to do. You play your game."