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Sania Mirza said her baby had his own "entourage" and was waking her up at night as she played in her first Grand Slam tournament as a mother at the ongoing Australian Open.
The Indian tennis player, who won the women's doubles title with Ukraine's Nadiia Kichenok at the Hobart International last Saturday, said life on the tour is a little different with one-year-old Izhaan.
"My baby's entourage is bigger than mine now. That's the only way I'm able to give my 100 per cent into training," Sania said.
"It is a little more complicated. He sleeps in the same bed as me still, so he wakes up a couple of times at night. It's basic things like that that you probably don't think about when you're not a mum.
"I'm really lucky. I have a lot of help. My mum is there. My parents have been a great support. There's no way I would have done it without them."
Sania, who won six Grand Slam doubles titles, took a break from the game after the China Open in October 2017 and gave birth to her son a year later.
The 33-year-old, who won the 2016 Australian Open doubles with Martina Hingis, joins a select band of players, including Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters, who have returned to tennis after giving birth.
Sania, who is married to Pakistan cricketer Shoaib Malik, said she hoped to show other South Asian mothers that having children doesn't mean giving up on their dreams.
"I feel especially in the part of the world that I come from, when women have a kid or kids, it's treated as kind of an end of their world," Sania said.
"I feel that women are made to feel if they go out and chase their dreams, they're probably not the best mothers in the world. I hope that changes.
"I hope that if my victory or even one match can inspire even one woman to follow her dream or heart, I would be really, really privileged."
Sania said she had no concrete plans to play professional tennis again after the birth of Izhaan in October 2018. She was then approaching her 32nd birthday and had already won six Grand Slam titles - three in women's doubles, three in mixed - as well as accumulating 91 weeks as world No. 1.
When she finally decided to return to the match-court, around six months ago, Shoaib played a major role.
"He was most supportive," said Sania. "Even when I wasn't sure, he kept on telling me 'Why don't you go and practice?' So he comes from a very different mindset (to many people in India and Pakistan), which is why we were married. It takes a very strong man to be married to a strong woman."
It took her four months to lose the extra 23 kilos she accumulated during pregnancy. She has undergone operations on both knees, which ruled out running to get fit.
So she had to rely on the elliptical trainer as well as a diet that included no dairy products, gluten or processed sugar, to get fit. "I am very stubborn, like a lot of successful people," Sania said. "That worked in my favour."
Sania added that returning to tennis was not something that she thought of overnight. "It took time for me to understand how my body is reacting, how I'm reacting. How mentally, emotionally, I am reacting," she said.
"Am I able to still put in that kind of hard work and put in the 100 per cent which is needed to be at the top level?"
Sania considers her son to be her new inspiration.
"I think my son is my inspiration to be here," she said. "I hope when he starts to understand tennis and everything that's going on within a few years, he will be really proud of me."
Of all the mothers who have returned to tennis, Sania enjoyed the most immediate success.
In Hobart on Saturday, she won her first tournament on return to match play. "I do feel different," she said. "More emotional than I used to be, which sometimes isn't great. I don't know how I will chart my schedule for the rest of the season, because your body changes a lot when you have a baby. If I come to a tournament and I am hurting I will leave. But I still think I have tennis left in me.'"
Sania is the most successful active player in women's doubles with 42 titles. She won her first Grand Slam in mixed doubles at the Australian Open in 2009 and also bagged the women's doubles in 2016.
She pulled out of the Australian Open mixed doubles on Wednesday to protect her calf from a strain. Yesterday, she retired from her first round women's doubles match against China's Xinyun Han and Lin Zhu while trailing 2-6, 0-1 with Nadiia.
The Indian is unsure what is in store beyond Melbourne Park.
"I think a lot is going to depend on my body, how it's going to react," she said. "So I haven't thought about it as much. I'm just going to take it day by day and week by week really."
AFP, Reuters, Indo-Asian News Service
"I think my son is my inspiration to be here. I hope when he starts to understand tennis and everything that's going on within a few years, he will be really proud of me."
- Sania Mirza
