As UW competes out of the same Pac-10 Conference as traditional collegiate powerhouses such as Stanford, USC, Berkeley, and UCLA, potential opponents for Venise could include the likes of 14th-ranked Celia Durkin (Stanford); No. 3 Lindsey Nelson (USC); 6th-ranked Suzie Babos (Berkeley); and No. 18 Riza Zalameda (UCLA).

While dual matches do not commence until after the New Year, the Fall season does include the first two college majors of the year. The Riviera/ITA Women's All-American Championships Presented by Fila will take place at the Riviera Tennis Club in Pacific Palisades from October 4 – 7. However, pre-qualifying will begin on September 29-30 at UCLA.

The Wilson/ITA Regionals will then follow, where the finalists will automatically qualify for the ITA National Indoors, to be held at the Racquet Club Columbus, Ohio, starting November 1. UW will be competing in the ITA Northwest Championships, which will be held at Stanford from October 19-22, less than two week after the Riviera.

The last Husky to reach the latter stages of the ITA National Indoors was Indonesian Dea Sumantri (Washington), who got to the quarterfinals in 2004 before falling to No. 4 seed Julie Coin (Clemson).

"I'm really looking forward to the start of school...orientation, check out the campus, move in to the dormitories, meet my new roommate, and register for classes. But also can't wait to meet my teammates and looking forward to the first practice," said Venise.

In 2006, she debuted on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Rankings at No. 770. Soon after, she was to capture her second career pro circuit title at the US$10,000 Bangkok before rounding out with a season-ending rank of No. 479. In the process, she became the first player from the territory to finish the year inside the world's Top-500 since former Hong Kong number one Tong Ka Po ended 2002 at No. 369.

Born and bred in Hong Kong, Venise first showed glimpses of her potential on a big stage when she defeated no less than three current or future Hong Kong Fed Cup players to reach the women's final at the 2002 HK Nationals. In an amazing run of matches, the then Form 1 student stunned Jenny Lin in the first round 3-6, 6-1, 6-1; Cindy Lee in the second round, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4; and then top seed and defending champion, Joanne Cheung, 6-3, 6-4, before getting upended by Lam Po Kuen in the final.

Venise was 12 years and 318 days old.

Even Alvin Sallay, who had a front row seat that day, was impressed. Truth is, Alvin Sallay just doesn't get impressed easily.

But on that day, he did.

Unless records suggest otherwise, the only other teenager to have reached the final of a local major before their 13th birthday was Paulette Moreno, when she did it at the CRC Open in 1981. Paulette went on to have an outstanding junior career, reaching the girls' doubles final at Wimbledon in 1987 and attaining a Top-30 world ranking. In terms of WTA Rankings, she achieved a career-high No. 231 in singles and No. 178 in doubles.

See Back In Town This Week – Paulette Moreno Revisited (23 Sep 2005)

Venise's first overseas tournament also marked her debut as a HK representative when she competed at the 2003 ITF East Asian 14U Championships in Thailand. With no prior experience on the ITF World Junior Circuit, bang she came 5th in the Week One tournament, losing only to then world No. 644 and eventual champion, Amina Rakhim.

Eyewitness accounts back then were already drawing descriptions such as "poise", "intellect", and "heart". Her trailblazing run in that opening week gave her a No. 5 seeding for the second tournament, the only player on the HK team to get seeded. If not for an ill-timed bout of food poisoning at the start of the second week, she would have certainly finished higher than her placing of 13th overall.

Still, it was easily the best result turned it by a HK player, boy or girl.

After winning the SCAA Open 2003 women's singles crown at age 14 – her first local major – she bagged two more the following year, claiming both the HK Nationals and winning a second successive SCAA Open. She wasted no time in completing the set of silverware when she finally took home the CRC Open Ladies' crown in 2005.

Yet 2005 did not exactly begin too fortuitously for her, as a freak training accident while on the road in India left her with a severely fractured finger, which brought all progress to an abrupt halt. It took almost three months to heal. Confined to fitness drills, it was during this period that thoughts of uncertainty began to surface.

"I was playing with my left hand before retiring down, 5-0, in India. I thought I had lost all my skills and this would be the end of everything. So I just told myself if I could overcome this injury, I would really give everything I have to win and to treasure every minute of court time. When I finally recovered, I was so happy and hungry to win. In a way, that injury was a motivational factor," Venise recalled.

A few months later, with the addition of Zhang Ling and Yang Zijun to the team, Venise, now playing at the two spot due a drop in her rankings following time off, went undefeated (7-0) during the 2005 Jr Fed Cup Regional Qualifying. The trio ended up beating No. 3 seed New Zealand, 2-0, in a do-or-die playoff to secure HK's first qualification to the World Finals – a feat that was never accomplished since the event's inception in 1985.

The team was to place 11th overall in Barcelona later that year, a result that still stands as the benchmark for future Jr Fed Cup teams from Hong Kong.

Then, facing ranked professionals for the first time at the Asian Championships in Tashkent in September, Venise welcomed seventh-seeded world No. 338, Yoo Mi, with two steely-nerved tiebreaks, 7-6(3), 7-6(4), in the opening round of the women's singles to send the 19-year-old Korean home nice and early. Next, Filipino Fed Cup representative, Czarina-Mae Arevalo, was then halted in her comeback attempt, as Venise triumphed, 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, in their second round encounter.

In the end, it took fourth-seeded eventual champion, Akgul Amanmuradova, to finally halt Venise's Cinderella run in the quarterfinals.

In November, she christened her debut on the pro circuit by winning the US$10,000 Manila 1 as a qualifier. She defeated the No. 8, No. 3, and No. 1 seeds from the second round onwards before seeing off Czarina-Mae Arevalo again in the final, 6-1, 6-4. In doing so, she not only became the first player from the territory to win their maiden title on their pro debut, unless records suggest otherwise, she was also the youngest from HK to capture any professional title, man or woman (16yrs 5 months).

For all its worth by such a comparison, former WTA No. 236, Tong Ka Po, did not earn her maiden title until her 14th career tournament on the women's circuit.

Still, some observers said it was mere beginner's luck; others called it a fluke.

The following week, Venise beat two more seeded players to reach the C10 Manila 2 final before eventually falling to UCLA No. 1, Riza Zalameda.

Even then, some said this was as far as she could go, while others stated with Nostradamus-like prophecy that she could never break WTA's Top-500.

Eating one's own words has never been tastier.

Unlike its dreadful beginning, 2005 turned out to be one of her most fruitful years as a tennis player, as Venise went on to wrap it up on a triumphant note. Seeded second, the world junior No. 45 came from the brink of defeat to secure her first CRC Open Ladies' Singles title when the 16-year-old thwarted former three-time winner, Lam Po Kuen, in the final, 3-6, 7-5, 6-2, after the number one seed had served for the match at 5-3 in the second set.

Right before her Fed Cup debut in Group II last April, she again matched another one of Paulette Moreno's long standing record when she finished runner-up at the GB1 Asian Junior Closed Championships to the highly-touted Ayumi Morita of Japan, who was then the WTA's 279th-ranked player already.

Soon after, she was to reach a career-high junior world ranking of No. 24, in addition to being the second-ranked 18U player in all of Asia. She was also a direct entry for all four junior Grand Slams in 2006 in both singles and doubles and was seeded seventh together with Brazil's Teliana Pereira in the girls' doubles at the US Open.

At the 2007 Asia/Oceania Zone Group I event in Christchurch, Venise, again playing at number one singles, was instrumental in helping HK to a sixth place finish, which guaranteed the territory's Group I status for next year.

En route, she defied the odds and rankings by beating former world No. 16 Iroda Tulyaganova of Uzbekistan that sealed Hong Kong's overall 2-1 victory, bearing in mind that this came against the same Uzbek side that had knocked China out of the medal rounds at the 15th Asian Games in Doha just four months earlier.

For those who are not familiar with the name Iroda, she was a former Junior Wimbledon champion, owns seven WTA Tour titles (3 of them singles), had a career-high No. 16 world ranking, and the reigning Asian Championships winner. In her career, the Uzbek No. 1 had earned close to US$1 million in prize money alone, and she has beaten the likes of Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, Alicia Molik, Jelena Dokic, Conchita Martinez, Iva Majoli, Justine Henin, Kim Clijsters, and Elena Dementieva.

Enough said.

Then, with HK trailing 1-0, New Zealand's most decorated Fed Cupper, Leanne Baker (WTA 270), was all but ready to wrap up the 5th-6th place playoff in front of a boisterous home crowd when the Fed Cup sophomore from HK came from a set down to stun the Kiwi, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, who was ranked some 300 places above her.

Venise's display against Baker and, in particular against Iroda, where she was actually able to dictate play for sizable periods because of excellent timing and placement, would have been a spectacle to watch. More importantly, her ability to maneuver a former Top-16 player from tramline to tramline must surely be indicative of some innate talent that could be harnessed further still.

What's more, she does not play the normal muscle game as her peers do. In fact, opponents who play her for the first time usually end up having a nightmarish experience because of the variety of shots she throws at them. She can engage in drawn-out, power baseline exchanges, but she also mixes it up with whatever shots that are known to humankind: shallow cross-courts, slices, drop shots, disguised lobs, floaters, down the lines, etc, that simply gives her opponents no rhythm whatsoever and drives them up the wall.

Now that Venise will be honing her skills within a team environment found in collegiate tennis, it should provide her with a solid platform for further development. Considering the marked improvements of some of her predecessors, such as Wayne Wong (Berkeley) and Brian Hung (Michigan), had accrued over their four years, chances are the experience will also make her a better, more complete player.

As the saying goes, you don't become the best unless you compete against the best.

Furthermore, assuming she gets to start at the one spot, she will be subject to one of the toughest schedules for an individual player in collegiate tennis, as traditional powerhouses such as Stanford, Berkeley, USC, and UCLA all hail from the same ultra-competitive Pac-10 Conference.

As mentioned earlier, Lindsey Nelson (USC) and Suzie Babos (Berkeley) are both ranked in the Top-10, while Celia Durkin (Stanford) and Riza Zalameda (UCLA) also reside in the Top-20.

Remarkable as it may seem, but counting Venise, that means only three representatives from Hong Kong have had the opportunity to start on a Division 1 women's tennis team since 1984, a span of almost a quarter of a century. Looking at it in another way, there had been a player each in every decade – Pat Hy in the 80s, Jackie Fu in the 90s, and now Venise in the new millennium.

Evidently, it is not a phenomenon that occurs with any sort of regularity.

Tennis aside, Venise will be heading back to a real school on a real campus for the first time since leaving Marymount Secondary School three years ago to become a full-time player. The whole prospect of going to college and, at the same time, still pursuing the sport she likes is certainly an exciting outlook. Yet the truth is that her time in the limelight pales in comparison to the sacrifices and hardwork she had to put up with on a daily basis just to keep moving forward and remain competitive.

For Venise, becoming a full-time tennis player at age 15 meant leaving normal education early, enrolling in a virtual highschool, be constantly on the road travelling from one tournament to the next, and separated from family and friends for extended periods. It also translated to a strict adherence to unyielding schedules that just do not leave much room for anything else.

Most days, she hardly has enough time even for herself.

Being good at tennis maybe a prerequisite, but that alone is not nearly enough. All the chips must fall in the right places. Sometimes, luck is the crucial element, while in other instances, supportive parents, coaches, families, and friends. Most of the time, however, it is down to sheer talent, unwavering perseverance, and an expanding intellect that befits the player.

In four year's time, she might end up pursuing a professional career in a field that really interests her or she might return to the pro circuit for a fresh crack. Only time will tell. Whatever she may do, it is her decision to make.

However, one thing's for sure – you haven't heard the last of her yet. Unlike the depthless droves who display a fondness for superficial things, this young lady personifies style and substance, a kind that is uniquely her own. It's just that next time you see her, she'll be a tad stronger, a little faster, more experienced, and in essence still wielding the kind of touch and timing that most players can only ever dream of.

So just remember this: Her name...is Venise.

Related Info:

HK Representatives to have played NCAA Div I Women's Tennis:

Year              Player
1984-1987     Patricia Hy (UCLA)
1997-2000     Jackie Fu (Yale) **
2007-            Venise Chan (Washington)

** Captain of Yale (1999-2000)

Related Stories:

Super Ven KO's reigning Asian champ to seal vital HK win (18 Apr 2007)

Women's Tennis Signs Top Notch International Recruit (gohuskies.cstv.com, 17 Nov 2006)

Venise breaks into Sony Ericsson WTA Singles Top-500 (11 Oct 2006)

Venise Chan wins first ITF pro tournament (MyHighSchoolJournalism.org, 29 Jan 2006)

HK qualifier rules ITF tilt (Manila Bulletin Online, 14 Nov 2005)

Venise dumps world No. 338 from 1st round of Asian Championships 2005 (6 Sep 2005)

Did You Know...

Well-known personalities that were graduates of UW include Kyle MacLachlan, Warren Moon, George Stigler, Bill Gates' parents, astronauts, Nobel Prize winners, politicians, plus one bona fide kung-fu mega-superstar by the name of Bruce Lee?

National number one, Li Na, won her first pro circuit title at the C10 Shenzhen at age 17 years and 4 months...but Venise beat that by eight whole months when she won the C10 Manila 1 at age 16 years and 5 months?

UW had in fact reached the quarterfinals of the NCAA Championships in 2001 and 2004, and that there had been 11 individual All-Americans during the past six years?

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career.
I've lost almost 300 games.
26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed.
I've failed over and over and over again in my life.
And that is why I succeed  - M i c h a e l   J o r d a n

Jordan quote retrieved from www.brainyquote.com.