"I have now realised how important it is to stay healthy especially because I want to be the best player in the world."
Sharapova said she has put behind her the defeat to Serena Williams in the semi-finals of the Australian Open after sitting pretty with three match points.
"I was disappointed then but now I don't even think about that defeat. It seems so long ago," said the 17-year-old, who has spent the past few days in Spain where she trained to regain her fitness after skipping Paris.
"I really feel good now and I will have three more days in Doha to acclimatise to the conditions here before playing my first match."
Ranked fourth in the world, Sharapova is seeded second in the Qatar Open which also features her compatriot Anastasia Myskina and world number two Amelie Mauresmo.
Frenchwoman Mauresmo is the top seed here, followed by Sharapova, Myskina and Alicia Molik who have all been given first round byes which means they get to see action only on Wednesday.
Myskina, who is on track for a hat-trick in Doha, and Sharapova are in the bottom half of the draw and could run into each other in the semi-finals, something the teenage superstar said she was not worried about. "You have to be ready for everything when you are playing an important tournament because everyone wants to do well," she said.
Myskina has made the Doha event all her own and would be hoping to pull off the rare feat of winning a tournament for the third straight year. If she succeeds, she will not only make history and pocket the top 94,000 dollars prize but also receive a magnificent trophy sponsored by a local jeweller for the player winning the tournament three years in a row.
Myskina defeated fellow Russian Elena Likhovtseva in 2003 for her first ever title on the WTA Tour and followed it up with the 2004 crown, beating Svetlana Kuznetsova, the current US Open champion.
The Qatar Open, in its fifth year, also features Spanish veteran Conchita Martinez, Japan's Ai Sugiyama and Swiss Patty Schnyder.