At the end of her junior year, Venise Chan (Washington) became only the second collegiate player from Hong Kong to earn Division I All-America honours in women's singles. In addition, she was a recipient of the Arthur Ashe Junior Sports Scholar Award.

"It certainly feels great to earn this achievement. Being an All-American has always been my goal in college, and it's just an honour to become one," said Venise.

Former Hong Kong Fed Cup player Patricia Hy (UCLA), who was ranked as high as No. 52 (8 Apr 1991) on the WTA Tour in singles while still a representative of the territory, was the first to achieve this path-breaking feat back in 1984.

No other player from Hong Kong (male or female) has garnered Division I All-America honours in singles.

Only two former Hong Kong Davis Cuppers – John Hui (Pepperdine, 1999) and Brian Hung (Michigan, 2007) – have earned Division I All-America honours in men's doubles previously.

However, it was not all that plain sailing for Venise in her endeavours to become an All-American. Although the Hong Kong prodigy managed to produce one of the best freshman and sophomore seasons in school history, the sought-after accolade still eluded her until this year.

She has inadvertently demonstrated once again just how difficult it is to be an A student both on the tennis court and in the classroom at the Division I level. The amount of effort, self-discipline, motivation, and intellect required is sometimes not fully fathomed nor appreciated by those masked by naivety and ignorance.

As a freshman, she already beat USC No. 1 Lindsey Nelson, a two-time Honda Award finalist, as well as Berkeley No. 1 Suzi Babos, the 2005 NCAA Champion and two-time All American Championship winner.

As a sophomore, she did the unthinkable by becoming the first college player this century to sweep the number ones from Stanford, Berkeley, USC, and UCLA during the regular season.

She started things off by first accomplishing the "Bay Area Sweep" by taking out Jana Juricova (Berkeley) and Hilary Barte (Stanford).

To complete decorations with pretty icing up top, she then dismissed Yasmin Schnack (UCLA), 6-3, 7-6(0), and Sarah Fansler (USC) in straight sets, 6-2, 6-2, for the "L.A. Sweep" to complete the exquisite four-timer.

Unless records suggest otherwise, only two players have come close to achieving this incredible feat since 2000.*

In 2002, Poland's Agata Cioroch (Georgia) won at No. 1 singles against Gabriela Lastra (Stanford), Raquel Kop-Jones (Berkeley), and Megan Bradley (UCLA), but Georgia never played USC that year in a dual-match.

In 2004, Englishwoman Claire Carter (Washington) came closest when she beat Amber Liu (Stanford), Catherine Lynch (Berkeley), and Jackie Carleton (UCLA) at the one spot in succession before going down against Luana Magnani (USC) in a third set tiebreak, 6-1, 3-6, 7-6.

This feat will be hard matched in its own unique way, given that a top player in the Pac-10 would almost always come from either USC, UCLA, Stanford, or Berkeley, and harder still for that player to sweep all of those four traditional powerhouses at No. 1 singles during the same season.

Unfortunately, existing records available only allows backtracking to year 2000. Who is to say with any degree of certainty if this atypical four-timer was indeed ever attained during all those seasons that predated Y2K?

According to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA), in order to be named an All-American, a player must have received a Top-16 seed in the NCAA Singles Championships, reach the round of 16 in the NCAA Singles Championship, or finish in the Top-20 on the final Campbell/ITA College Tennis Rankings.

Venise, in the end, matched all three criteria without fail.

She was accorded a seeding of 9-16th, safely reaching the last sixteen at the NCAA Championships, and finished this past season ranked No. 15.

Earlier in January, Venise peaked at a career-high No. 11. She was also able to maintain a Top-20 ranking throughout the year whilst never dropping below No. 17.

Even though it was also the first time she had advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAAs, her exploits almost capsized as soon as it had begun. As it turned out, she was dangling on the edges of vanquishment with little to spare and had to save a match point just to steer herself away from being knocked out prematurely for the third year running in Georgia.

In the opening round, she trailed 28th-ranked Marta Lesniak (SMU), 6-1, 5-1, before mounting a preposterous comeback to win the last two sets, 7-5, 6-0, by strong-arming eleven games on the trot.

After defeating 30th-ranked USC number two, Alison Ramos, in straight sets, her run at the NCAAs was finally halted by ITA Player of the Year Irina Falconi (Georgia Tech), who was actually responsible for Venise's demise in all three collegiate majors this year.

Nevertheless, Venise was only one of five women to have reached the round of sixteen or better in all three college major championships this past season. Moreover, based on the final Campbell/ITA College Rankings issued on June 7, she has beaten 6 of the Top-10 ranked players, and 8 of the 14 who were listed above her.

They were No.2 Jana Juricova (Berkeley), No. 3 Hilary Barte (Stanford), No. 4 Laura Vallverdu (Florida), No. 5 Maria Sanchez (USC), No. 7 Yasmin Schnack (UCLA), No. 9 Lenka Broosova (Baylor), No. 13 Denise Dy (Washington), and No. 14 Kristy Frilling (Notre Dame).

After picking up a Player of the Week Award in her freshman and sophomore seasons, Venise received two more this year. She now owns four of Washington's six honors dating back to the inception of the award in 2006.

"Teams obviously know how we play and they approach us differently now, so I'm expecting a tough match everytime I step out on court," said Venise. "I just try to get better each year. I think my mentality is also different. For example, I think last season I really wanted to win in the NCAAs (but was upset in the first round). I still want to win but I tried not to over think it too much. And this year I have Denise [Dy] pushing me, and it's good to have someone push you, it motivates me more."

Aside from being just one of two players selected to both the Pac-10 All-Conference and All-Academic First Teams, Venise was also named Arthur Ashe Junior Sports Scholar, an award won by only four student-athletes attending the University of Washington this year.

Declared as a business administration major, Venise currently sits pretty with a 3.6+ cumulative Grade Point Average.

"Without Venise our program would not have risen so far in the rankings so fast. She has done so much for our program, as she has been able to compete and beat some of the top girls in the country. Not only is she amazing on the tennis court, she is also a great student," said University of Washington Head Coach, Jill Hultquist.

"We would love to have six more Venise's on our team!"

An All-American…Made in Hong Kong.

Related Information:

Hong Kong Davis Cup starters to have played NCAA Division I men's tennis:
Year	Player
1981-1984	Mark Bailey (Kentucky)
1986-1989	Rolf Harrison (Princeton)
1994-1997	Sven Koehler (Duke)
1998-2000	John Hui (Pepperdine)
2000-2004	Wayne Wong (Berkeley)
2003-2007	Brian Hung (Michigan) *
2005-2009	Martin Sayer (Radford)
2006-2008	Jack Hui (UCSB)
	* Captain of Michigan (2005-2007)
Hong Kong Fed Cup starters to have played NCAA Division I women's tennis:
Year	Player
1984-1987	Patricia Hy (UCLA)
1996-2000	Jacklyn Fu (Yale) **
2007-	Venise Chan (Washington)
	** Captain of Yale (1999-2000)

Lead photo courtesy of www.hkspa.org
P1013566 courtesy of Donald Chin
*Pre-2000 results not available