Long before Maria Sharapova ever played her first professional match, she carried a torch for the Olympic Games that kept her up late at night dreaming of taking her turn on the world stage and dressing the part.

"It was one of the things that my parents allowed me to watch on TV late," Sharapova says in an interview published in the ITF's new official Olympic book "Journey To Beijing: Tennis Celebrates The Olympics". "One of those was the opening ceremony. I remember being up at one in the morning because I'd have to wait until Russia would come up. Obviously, that's a later letter in the alphabet. So it was very exciting. And I remember them wearing their white berets. I used to have a similar one, so I'd put it on while they were walking and pretend like I was part of it. Those were some great memories."

The Australian Open champion will try to create her own Olympic moment when she plays the Beijing Games.

"I'm getting chills just thinking about it," Sharapova said. "You know it's really surreal. My imagination of it is just picturing all these athletes in this one big room getting lined up to go outside in front of thousands and thousands of people."

The Olympic tennis event will be staged Sunday, August 10 through Sunday, August  17 at the new Olympic Tennis Center in Beijing, China. The competition will include 64-player men’s and women’s singles draws and a 32-team draw in men’s and women’s doubles.

The ITF announced the direct acceptance list for the Olympics, asserting "for both men and women, this is the strongest field ever to enter the Olympic Tennis Event since tennis returned as a full medal sport in Seoul 1988."

Led by the world No. 1s,  Roger Federer and Ana Ivanovic, 17 of the top 20 men and 18 of the top 20 women will compete in Beijing.

Sharapova took time out from tennis after her Wimbledon loss to travel to Paris with her best friend, actress Camille Belle, where she took in the Paris couture.