Australian Open champion Maria Sharapova will make her Fed Cup debut for Russia in their quarter-final tie against Israel on Saturday.
Sharapova will join Elena Vesnina, Anna Chakvetadze and Dinara Safina as they travel to Israel on 2-3 February.

And she insists that talk of her being disliked by her team-mates after repeatedly pulling out of Fed Cup squads is off the mark.

"The majority of us have a wonderful relationship, we do," said Sharapova.

Maria Sharapova has had little time to savour her Australian Open victory.

The Russian travelled to Israel to make her debut in the Fed Cup, just days after beating Ana Ivanovic 7-5, 6-3 in Melbourne for her third Grand Slam title. "I want to be No. 1 again," the fifth-ranked Sharapova said Tuesday. "I want to win Grand Slams."

Sharapova, making her first visit to Israel, leads a powerful defending champion Russian team that also includes seventh-ranked Anna Chakvetadze, No. 16 Dinara Safina and Elena Vesnina.

Russian newspapers on Monday sung the praises of Maria Sharapova for winning her third Grand Slam title on Saturday at the Australian Open in Melbourne.

"Keep it going!" headlined the front page of the country's oldest sports daily Soviet Sport as it reported on the year's opening Grand Slam event.

The newspaper also expressed the hope that Sharapova would make a winning start to her Fed Cup debut for title-holders Russia away to Israel in Tel Aviv later this week.

The only shrieking Maria Sharapova wants to hear 10 years from now will be coming from her babies, with the newly-crowned Australian Open champion vowing to quit tennis before she hits 30.

US-based Sharapova said she had a deep love of the game but also wanted to have a family and would not stretch out her career for too long.

"No. Definitely not," she replied when asked if she would play on until 2018.

"I hope by that time I'll have a nice husband and a few kids."

QUESTION
What are your feelings after that?

MARIA SHARAPOVA:
So exciting. Uhm, I don't know. It's amazing. You know, sometimes you just -- when you're putting the work in it just seems so, so hard, and you never know when that work's gonna pay off. When you're going through tough moments, you never know when you're going to have good moments.
I'm just so thankful that I got this one.