Former Aussie Open Champion – Maria Sharapova is confident that her plans for the upcoming first Grand Slam of 2013 is on track, despite missing her warm up event at the Brisbane International through a collarbone injury.

The Russian decided to pull out of the event when she was practising for her opening match. Brisbane is a popular warm up event this year, as eight of the world’s top 10 are participating in it.

Doubts continue to surround this injury to the World No.2, considering her perpetual shoulder troubles that have haunted her since 2008. But the Russian maintained that the injury to the collarbone is “not at all” related.

“I still have quite a bit of time to prepare for Australia. I’m on the right track, been training really well, so I just don’t want to jeopardise what I’ve gained in the off-season so far,” Sharapova said. “Just have to make a smart move here.

“It’s kind of the way that I’ve always built my career, around the fact that it’s very important for me to go into something like the Australian Open believing and knowing that I’m healthy, that I’m confident. I don’t exactly need to play five tournaments in order to feel that way.”

But, this isn’t the first time that Sharapova has withdrawn from the Brisbane event, the reigning French Open champion also missed the event last year, and still managed to progress to the final of the Aussie Open.

She added: “I had a bit of inflammation in my collarbone, and I sent [scan results] to a doctor in New York and he told me I couldn’t really do much overhead training for about a week. So to be fair, I haven’t really given myself a chance to pretty much hit any serves or anything over my head ... So I just kind of ran out of time here.”