After coming close in Melbourne and Sydney, Tendulkar arrives in Perth with his team needing a massive contribution to try and fight back from a 2-0 series deficit.
And Ponting suspects the personal pressure to achieve the milestone, as well as the expectation and focus of a millions of cricket fans, could also be starting to weigh heavily on the shoulders of the all-time great after more than a year on 99 tons.
“Probably (he is starting to feel the pressure),” Ponting said.
“I am not inside Sachin Tendulkar’s head - I wish I was some of the time, but I am not.
“It has been spoken about for a long time now and I suppose every innings that goes past it will be another one he wishes had had made that great milestone.
“You can see the way he played last week he is playing very well, and you can see how much and how big a wicket he is for the Australian cricket team."
It is 18 innings since Tendulkar’s last ton, against South Africa at Newlands in January 2011 - and six times since then he has reached fifty but not converted to reach the magical number.
With the pressure increasingly growing on the tourists from the fanatical Indian supporters and media, Ponting says statistics mean nothing in getting Tendulkar’s wicket.
“You are not going to find too many negative stories if you read through Sachin Tendulkar’s stats, that is for sure,” Ponting said.
“We don’t look at his stats we just try to get him out as early as we can.”
Ponting’s own barren spell of over two years was broken in spectacular style with a century at the SCG, with the image of the former captain covered in dirt with a beaming smile one of the pictures of the summer.
The relaxed ex-skipper, who has enjoyed highs and lows at the WACA, said he hoped the shackles were now off his game, and he could help drive the Australians back towards the summit of world cricket - despite turning 37 late last month.
“I made some progress - the biggest challenge for me has been getting enough quality time in the middle,” Ponting said.
“I was still battling myself a little bit, but on day two (in Sydney) was probably as free as I have felt for a long time.
“When you are making as few a mistakes as I did on the second day you can take a lot of confidence from that.
“There has been gradual improvement and it was nice to spend a little bit more time in the middle and make that hundred that I have been pushing so hard for.
“Confidence is everything in our game.
“But I am not going to rest on one hundred. I said once I get to those three figures hopefully it is the start of something big for me.
“I have trained the same this week … the team has got room for improvement, we are not going to rest until we are at our peak.”