Venise Chan: From Tennis Prodigy to Padel Competitor at Asian Games

Venise Chan Wing-yau was once hailed as the “future Venus Williams of Hong Kong tennis”, a prodigy who reached the national championships final at just 12 years old. Back then, her rise played out on quiet courts and in newspaper columns, not under the unforgiving spotlight of social media. Looking back, she is thankful for that.

A quarter of a century on, Chan is still stepping into the arena, still mastering new angles, new bounces, new games.

This month, she will walk out in Hong Kong colours again, this time in padel, the sport billed as the world’s fastest-growing racquet game, as it makes its Asian Games debut. For Chan, it is not just another tournament. It is a return to the stage she last graced 12 years ago, when she played in the third of her Asian Games as a tennis player.

The years in between were anything but quiet. Chan built a second sporting career in pickleball, helping Hong Kong’s city team reach the World Cup final in the United States last year. Different court, different ball, same competitive edge.

Padel entered her life almost by chance. A colleague from Carret Private Capital, where Chan works as a risk and compliance director, invited her to try it. The court was smaller, the walls in play, the tactics unfamiliar. The learning curve did not last long.

By January, the casual hit had turned into something more serious. “Maybe I could try for the Asian Games,” she thought.

The idea quickly became a plan. The plan became a commitment.

“Once I started playing, I didn’t stop,” she said.

Now, as padel steps into the Asian Games for the first time, Chan steps with it — a former tennis prodigy, a pickleball World Cup finalist, and once again a standard-bearer for Hong Kong on a new kind of court.