After registering her best Fall to date, during which she reached the semifinals of the All American and the last eight at the National Indoors, junior Venise Chan (Washington) has now risen to No. 11 according to the latest NCAA Division I Women's Rankings released earlier this month.

During last weekend's Michigan Invitational, a final preseason event featuring No. 7 Miami, No. 11 Tennessee, No. 20 Michigan and No. 24 Washington, Venise Chan beat 36th-ranked Denise Muresan (Michigan) in straight sets and No. 7 Laura Vallverdu (Miami), 0-6, 7-5, 7-6 (7-4), before losing to sixth-ranked Caitlin Whoriskey (Tennessee), in three sets, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.

In view of the ten players ranked above her at present, the Hong Kong native has beaten six of them thus far in previous face-offs. They are 2nd-ranked Jana Juricova (Berkeley), No. 3 Denise Dy (UW), No. 5 Yasmin Schnack (UCLA), No. 7 Laura Vallverdu (Miami), No. 8 Maria Sanchez (USC), and No. 10 Marina Cossou (Berkeley).

Complete 2009-2010 NCAA Division I Women's Rankings

Meanwhile, the Pac-10 Conference Office has just announced earlier on Monday that Venise Chan was named Pac-10 Women's Tennis Player of the Week for the week of January 18-24, 2010.

The UW junior has gone 12-4 in singles matches this year with seven of those wins coming against nationally ranked opponents.

Venise Chan now owns three of Washington's four all-time Pac-10 Player of the Week honours, an award that was initiated in 2006.

2009 Pac-10 Women's Player of the Week

The 23rd-ranked Washington Huskies now heads to Arkansas this week for the ITA National Team Indoor Championship qualifying rounds.

On Friday (Jan 29), they are slated to go up against the 19th-ranked Razorbacks on Friday. Then on Saturday (Jan 30), they will play either 17th-ranked South Carolina or 20th-ranked Michigan The team to win both these weekend matches shall advance to the 16-team National Indoor Team Championship finals, to be hosted by the University of Wisconsin from February 12-15.

Aside from her on court exploits, to excel in the classroom was always a goal too.

In 2009, Venise Chan was one of just two players in the conference, and third all-time from Washington, named to both the Pac-10 All Conference and Pac-10 All-Academic First Teams in the same year.

Pac-10 Women's Tennis Records

Although the regular season has just started this past weekend and it is therefore at least 4-5 months away from the end of the season, let it be known that players can earn All-America honours in singles by satisfying either one of the three following criteria:

1.) Top 16 seed in NCAA Singles Championships, or;
2.) Reach round of 16 in NCAA Singles Championships, or;
3.) Finish in the Top 20 of the final ITA Rankings

Over the years, only one player from Hong Kong has ever won a D1 Women's All-American. That distinction belongs to Patricia Hy (UCLA), who was a singles All-American in 1984, a year after winning the girls' doubles and reaching the girls' singles final at Junior Wimbledon.

Rather coincidentally, 1984 was also the year Washington's current head coach, Jill Hetherington (Florida), won the first of her six All-America honours (Twice singles and 4-time doubles).

1984 All-America Teams

As a player, Jill Hetherington played professionally on the WTA Tour from 1987-1997; winning more than 20 doubles titles. Together with Patty Fendick, they beat Steffi Graf and Gabriela Sabatini in the semifinals of the 1988 U.S. Open, while reaching the Aussie Open final the following year.

She was the 1995 French Open mixed doubles finalist and a three-time Olympian for her native Canada in 1984, 1988 and 1996. She teamed up with Patricia Hy-Boulais to reach the quarterfinals at the Atlanta Games in 1996 before losing to Jana Novotna and Helena Sukova. She ranked as high as No. 6 in doubles and No. 64 in singles.

Jill Hetherington-Hultquist was named to the University of Florida Hall of Fame in 1999 and inducted into the Canadian Tennis Hall of Fame in 2001.

Meanwhile…

In Charlottesville, No. 2-ranked Virginia opened its 2010 season with an emphatic 15-0 drubbing of 75th-ranked William & Mary to register its 49th consecutive victory at home. The match used an alternative scoring method agreed upon by both teams. The match consisted of five doubles matches and 10 singles matches, all counting as a point each.

Dino Dell'Orto beat Jacob Braig (W&M) swiftly at the ten spot, 6-2, 6-3, to make his debut for UVa a winning one.

Reverting back to the regular dual-match format for its next match, UVa beat Illinois away from home 6-1 with a singles lineup that featured nothing but top-60 ranked players: No. 3 Michael Shabaz, No. 12 Sanam Singh, No. 16 Jarmere Jenkins, No. 28 Lee Singer, No. 31 Drew Courtney, and No. 58 Houston Barrick.

Out in California, former Hong Kong resident, Ryan Cheung, has signed a Letter of Intent to attend UC Irvine on a tennis scholarship starting in Fall 2010. He ended 2009 ranked No. 3 in Boys' 18 doubles nationally and No. 1 in Southern California after finishing fourth in Boys' 18 doubles with Mousheg Hovhannisyan at the USTA National Hard Court Championships in Kalamazoo, Mich.

Head Coach for the Anteaters is Trevor Kronemann, who peaked at No. 19 in the world in men's doubles (15 May 1995) and owns six career ATP Tour doubles titles, while reaching the final on five other occasions. In 1991, he reached the doubles final at the Hong Kong Challenger but lost to the Jensen Brothers via a walkover.

He played collegiate tennis at UC Irvine and was a four-time singles and two-time doubles All-American.

USTA B18 doubles Top 100 rankings

Stars shine at Michigan Invitational (DailyUW.com, 20 Jan 2010)