Serbian challenge fires up deposed Sharapova

Sharapova went into the recent French Open as the newly-crowned world No1 following Justine Henin's shock retirement, but a quarter-final defeat by fellow Russian Dinara Safina pushed her back down the rankings to No3.

Ivanovic assumed the top ranking with her triumph over Safina in the Roland Garros final, with Jankovic moving up to No2 after her progress in Paris was halted at the semi-final stage by the eventual champion.

Jankovic is now predicting the two Serbians are set to dominate the game but Sharapova, who has already spent a week practising at Wimbledon in a bid to repeat her title triumph of four years ago, said: "I welcome that challenge, absolutely.

"Any athlete enjoys that kind of test.

That's what it's all about and what drives me to beat the better players out there. It's great and that's what I love about tennis."

Sharapova flew home to Florida immediately after her defeat in Paris

"Within 24 hours of losing I was in my coffee shop looking through a cookbook and wondering what I was going to prepare for dinner," the 21-year-old said at the launch of the sports drink Gatorade in Wimbledon last night.

"I have a very normal life outside of this tennis world, and I'm glad for that because when I get back home it's easy for me to switch off.

"When I'm on the court it's all work, but when I'm off the court I can go about my normal life.

"I took a little bit of time off after the French Open. I usually stay in Europe at this time of year, but I wanted to change things a little bit."

Having decided to opt out of the usual warm-up tournaments in Birmingham and Eastbourne, Sharapova may be taking a risk as she will be short of competitive matches going into her favourite tournament.

But she dismissed suggestions she will not be up to speed on grass.

"It's been a long year and I've had a lot of matches," Sharapova said.

"Compared to last year I'm almost close to playing the same number of matches I played during the whole of 2007, and we're not yet in July."

While she can shed little light on why Eastern European countries can produce a host of top-quality young players while Britain has only one player in the top 100, Sharapova claims she still has the hunger to fight for Slam titles despite having already claimed three.

"I know that even though I'm only 21 there is a younger generation coming up that wants to be No1 in the world," she said.

"If you lose early in the tournament while they are still winning, you are back out on the practice court working to beat them.

"What's interesting about the girls coming out of Russia is that we weren't all in the same team. We developed in different parts of the world like Spain, America and Russia.

"We all found ways to reach the top, which is fascinating. We all worked very hard and had the belief to be a champion.

"I see a lot of coaching and time and effort being put into British tennis, which is good and every time I go to a different Grand Slam you see that the British players have really good coaches and facilities.

"That's what you need to produce really good talent, but it's not an overnight process. It takes time."