Pursuing Passions at the Highest Level

Oct. 22, 2009 -

Courtney Chin is a second-year women’s tennis player for the Tartans. A native of Cupertino, California, she is making the most of her first years at Carnegie Mellon University by working hard on the tennis court and getting involved with other passions she’s had since high school.

Chin is an economics major but enjoys journalism so much that within her first week on campus she signed up to work for the student newspaper, The Tartan.

“Journalism is a big interest of mine and I didn’t have time to take classes in high school or work on the newspaper staff because of tennis,” Chin said. “I have the opportunity here to do both.”

Chin has been playing tennis since she was nine. Traveling to tournaments with her father on weekends kept her from being able to take journalism classes because of when they were offered and the extra work involved.

For The Tartan, Chin wrote two articles a week for science/technology and sports during her first year. This fall, she serves as the sports co-editor and does everything from assigning articles, writing articles and working on layout. She uses the athletics web site for information and contacts coaches and players to get interviews.

Chin also serves on the Student-Athlete Advisory Council and works on the Tartan Rewards Committee.

The sophomore is also taking the opportunity to learn Chinese –a real interest because of her family heritage. In class she works on reading, writing, listening and speaking. She has to practice a lot, which might come as a surprise to her classmates.

“I don’t speak Chinese at home, although people think I do,” Chin said. “My parents speak to me in English so it’s something I really have to work on.”

As for tennis, Chin is coming off one of her best individual performances to date. She finished as the Wilson ITA Southeast Regional Runner-Up to teammate Laura Chen and only by three points. Chen won the first set 6-2 before Chin countered with an identical score. The third set went to a tiebreaker which Chen won 7-6 (7-4).

Her goal was to do better than last year, when she lost in the first round to the number one seed in three sets.

“Coach [Girard] had a lot to do with my success this year,” Chin said. “He always tells us we can go for the best. He drives us to work harder.

“I was disappointed when I lost last year, even though it was to the number one seed,” added Chin. “I was happy to make the finals and I didn’t want to expect anything, but once I felt I had a chance to win, I was disappointed when it didn’t happen.”

She has two more years to win the tournament and she’ll have plenty of practice against the two-time regional winner in Chen, who’s also a sophomore.

But next up for Chin is the chance to help Carnegie Mellon repeat as ITA National Team Indoor Champions and see if she can make the NCAA Individual Championship Tournament in May.