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

They called her the “future Venus Williams of Hong Kong tennis” when she was 12, a prodigy storming into the national championships final while most kids her age were still learning to keep the ball in play. The label stuck. The spotlight did not – and Venise Chan Wing-yau is quietly thankful for that.

She grew up before the age of viral clips and endless comment sections, before every junior point could be clipped, shared and dissected. No phones in her face. No strangers judging her technique in slow motion. Just a racquet, a court and the pressure she put on herself.

A quarter of a century on, Chan is still stepping into new arenas. Still learning fast. Still refusing to stand still.

This month, she will walk out in Hong Kong colours again, not with a tennis racquet in hand, but a padel bat, as the world’s fastest-growing racquet sport makes its Asian Games debut. For Hong Kong, it is a fresh chapter. For Chan, it is a full-circle return to the multi-sport stage she last graced 12 years ago.

Back then, she was a tennis player, representing the city at three Asian Games. Between those appearances and this latest call-up, her career veered in an unexpected direction. Chan threw herself into pickleball, helped drive its rise in Hong Kong and played a central role in the city team that reached the World Cup final in the United States last year.

The pattern is clear: give her a new sport, and she will find the ceiling quickly.

Padel arrived almost by chance. A colleague from Carret Private Capital, where Chan now works as a risk and compliance director, invited her to try it. A casual hit, nothing more. But the ball bounced differently, the glass walls changed the angles, and the competitive instincts that had carried her through tennis and pickleball kicked in again.

By January, the idea had hardened into a target. Asian Games. A new sport. One more run in Hong Kong colours.

“Maybe I could try for the Asian Games,” she thought. The more she played, the less hypothetical it became.

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

That is the essence of her story: not just a former tennis prodigy chasing nostalgia, but a serial competitor who keeps finding new frontiers. Now, as padel steps onto the Asian Games stage for the first time, Hong Kong sends out an athlete who has lived this kind of moment before – and still craves it.