Talking of her future with hubby Shoaib Malik makes her blush like a schoolgirl as she gives us a sneak peek into her romance. “I have known Shoaib for a very long time. I met him the first time in Delhi when India was playing Pakistan in 2004 and then we met a couple of times but very socially with friends. The real sparks flew in Australia; they were playing in Hobart and I was playing in Hobart too and that is where we met and started talking. That set the ball rolling and there was no looking back,” she says. So while they were seeing each other did they anticipate any problems for their cross border romance, from families or the general public since both are celebrities? “The most amazing part of sport is that it brings so much peace into the world. When the contingents arrive at the Olympics, the big global village, it does not matter what religion the players belong to, what colour they are, which country they come from, they live, eat, bathe et al in one compound. Whether you are from warring countries or friendly neighbours, you still could be staying next to each other and you see each other everyday for 2 weeks. The last thing that comes to our head when we see a person, or judge a person, is his or her ethnicity. Similarly, when we fell in love the last thing that came to our minds was which country we were from. And it was really as simple as that.  My parents are very liberal and they have supported me and my sis in all our decisions.”

We couldn’t agree less. The wedding though turned out to be a spectacle, and she had to be indoors for over 6 days. What did she go through then? Sania’s schoolgirl grin is replaced by a gravity defying her age as she says, “It was extremely stressful, the last thing on my mind was how I am going to look on the wedding day and that is so unfortunate because that is the main thing that should be on every bride’s mind. Even though we were really happy, the media and other vested interests made it extremely difficult for us to deal with it mentally and emotionally. But amidst all this, Shoaib was extremely calm considering the pressure was probably more on him and at that point we got really close. We were going through things probably most relations never go through or go through after many years of marriage. He got very close to my family at that time. At the end of the day I married the person I love and he married the one he loved.”