‘Every little thing that is here…is where I wanted it to be’: Inside Sania Mirza’s villa in Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah

“This is the space where we spend probably the most time in this house,” she shares. “It is the most spacious sort of living, drawing slash dining, slash kitchen, which has now been converted into a foosball table area for my four-and-a-half-year-old son.”

But it’s not just a playful vibe that dominates the house, it’s also built to be a sanctuary. “My life has been so much in the public. I feel like it’s my safe space,” Sania reflects. “It always gave me a little bit of sanity in the madness that was around me.”

The calmest part of her home is perhaps the prayer room, she says, a haven of pale hues. “I come from a belief of extreme spirituality. This room is where I go when I feel unsettled, when I feel unstable,” she explains. “It’s just really, really fresh. Just makes this room almost feel like there’s a halo around it.”

Motherhood has also profoundly shaped Sania’s view of home. “After becoming a mother, my perspective on tennis changed. To just be able to put my feet up and just switch off from the world is a luxury,” she says.

From Izhaan’s blue-and-grey themed room that sits right beside hers, to her own bottle green-accented master bedroom, Sania has designed every space with intention. “Literally, every little thing that is here—from the colours, like, every detail, even every frame that has been put here—is where I wanted it to be.”

One of the showstoppers is her dressing room, which Sania confesses is her most personal sanctuary. “This is the room that I feel the most myself in,” she smiles. “So you can see everything is organized. Obviously designed keeping in mind, with how many shoes I unnecessarily have.”

Even the formal dining area is laced with meaning. “I always wanted to make one room very formal. Because I feel like gold is something that can look very bad if you use it badly. But this very room, I’ve used some gold accents just to give it a little bit of a grand sort of look.”

Her favourite design feature is the wall of black and white stripes that adds visual drama and cosiness in equal measure. “It’s actually one of my most favourite walls in the room,” she noted.

But for all the design flourishes, what gives this home its soul is Sania’s sentiment. “They say, ‘Every house says something.’ I think my house says that the home was built with a lot of love. There are a lot of memories that we share with a lot of love.”