It's a particularly sunny day after Diwali, and Juhu Vile Parle Gymkhana is busy with visitors. Members are quietly swarming at a distance from the tennis court, where Sania Mirza is playing with her hitting partner and childhood friend Rohan Gajjar. After days of unforeseen rain, which threw her visit to train off gear, she's now sprinting across the court, getting an hour of morning practice in. Exactly a year ago, she delivered Izhaan. But, her court coverage is still enviable, as she hits the trickiest of shots, and, overall, looks infectiously happy.

While Gajjar dashes close to the net and ends up missing a carefully aimed dry volley shot, Imran Mirza saunters in and warmly introduces himself as Sania's father. Through the course of her play, he comments on her unique style of serve and how it has required tweaking to avoid injuries.

Soon, soaked from head to toe, Mirza is done with practice. "I love playing in this weather," she says unexpectedly, "because Mumbai's humidity makes me sweat, which is excellent training for big tournaments. I make my body adapt to different conditions, so I prefer to shuffle between Mumbai, Hyderabad and Dubai."

We think she is going to next speak of the challenge of finding her mojo after motherhood, but Mirza smiles, "It's been a lot of fun! I started physical work three weeks after giving birth to lose the weight, and began training three months after. Over the last two months, I've begun playing rigorous tennis six days a week." She admits that the start was dodgy because the body doesn't "feel" the same after giving birth, but she puts the biggest difference not to motherhood but age. "My body doesn't recover the way it used to. It's been two years since I played competitive tennis, so I am two years older, and in tennis, that's a long time."