Wimbledon is the Slam for me, says Maria Sharapova

Sharapova won her first Grand Slam at SW19 in 2004 aged 17 (Photo: Morton Lin)

Maria Sharapova has set her sights on a successful run at Wimbledon and says her long-term injury troubles have only made her hungrier for success.

Sharapova, 23, says that the London Grand Slam is her favourite event on the Tour and believes she can triumph at SW19 when the tournament gets underway next week.

“I absolutely love Wimbledon,” Sharapova said in an interview with the Guardian.

“It’s the Grand Slam that means the most to me and I think I could do very well this year.

“If I didn’t think that [I could win it], I wouldn’t be there.”

The world No.17 was sidelined for almost ten months with a rotator-cuff injury and revealed that it was her ‘love for the sport’ that stopped her from quitting altogether.

“I had so many excuses I could have made that it would have been easy to walk away,” she added.

“I could have said that no one else in tennis has ever come back from a serious rotator-cuff injury to their shoulder. I could have said I’ve made enough money to last me the rest of my life.

“But I love the sport too much to wake up and say I no longer want to do it. I missed it. It got to the point where I would look at books and pictures of some great moments I had on court just to remember what it felt like.”

The three-time Grand Slam champion last week signed a lucrative deal to become the new face of the Evian water brand where she will be featured in a new international campaign. Evian is a sponsor of Wimbledon and the US and Australian Opens.