Russia's Maria Sharapova is in confident mood for her title defence at the Pacific Life Open, despite being sidelined for more than four weeks with a hamstring injury.

The world number one has not played since being forced to retire in the second set of her Pan Pacific Open semi-final against Serbia's Ana Ivanovic in Tokyo last month.

"It's good," US Open champion Sharapova told reporters on Wednesday when asked about her injury.

"It was a little worrying after I got back from Tokyo because it wasn't really going anywhere. It stayed the same for a week or so.

"But then it started getting better and I've been training fully for about 10 to 12 days now."

Although Sharapova experienced problems with a tight hamstring at the Australian Open in January when she lost to Serena Williams in the final, she believes the real damage was done in Japan.

"I hurt it in Tokyo," the 19-year-old said. "It was a sudden movement that I did after a serve when I landed in the second game of my match against Ana.

"But it was sore before that so I don't know if that had anything to do with it or the courts that we were playing on."

Sharapova, seeded one at Indian Wells after crushing compatriot Elena Dementieva 6-1 6-2 in last year's final, described her run to the Australian Open final as "kind of weird".

SCRAPING THROUGH

She was on the brink of losing to Frenchwoman Camille Pin in the opening round before scraping through 6-3 4-6 9-7.

The elegant Russian led 5-0 in the third set before her opponent fought back to serve for the match at 7-6.

"It was a very strange tournament, from almost losing in the first round to get into the finals," Sharapova said.

"And then to do nothing there in the finals was kind of weird. You should be happy in a way but then you have just lost in the final but then you're happy because you almost lost in the first round."

Sharapova, the first Russian woman to reach the Australian Open final, was hammered 6-1 6-2 by Williams.

"Looking back, it was one of those days where she played amazing tennis, flawless tennis," she recalled. "And I made a lot of errors. I just could not find a way to try something different.

"I felt the whole initiative started at the beginning of that match. I let her break after being up in the game and from that point she gained a lot of confidence and momentum.

"When you give someone that confidence right at the beginning they can just steamroll throughout. Not getting any openings, it's kind of hard to find your way back."

Sharapova will launch her Indian Wells title defence against either Sweden's Sofia Arvidsson or Dutch player Michaella Krajicek after getting a bye into the second round.

(China Daily via Reuters March 9, 2007)