Melbourne: Inactive for the past two years due to injury, Taiwanese tennis veteran Latisha Chan announced her retirement on Wednesday and will be honored at a ceremony at the Australian Open on Saturday. In a statement, the 36-year-old Chan expressed no regrets about her tennis career, describing herself as "very lucky" to achieve significant success despite her physical challenges.
According to Focus Taiwan, Chan was diagnosed with postural tachycardia syndrome (POTS) in 2014, which prompted her to shift her focus from singles to doubles competition. Throughout her career, Chan secured one women's doubles Grand Slam title at the 2017 US Open with partner Martina Hingis and three Grand Slam mixed doubles titles at the French Open in 2018 and 2019, and Wimbledon in 2019. She also represented her country in four Olympic Games and amassed five gold, three silver, and one bronze medal in five Asian Games appearances.
Chan's last full season was in 2023, where she and her sister, Chan Hao-ching, reached the final of a WTA 1000 event in Dubai and the quarter-finals of the French Open. She attempted a comeback in the Olympic tennis tournament in Paris in late July 2024 with her sister, but they were defeated in the first round by a formidable Czech duo. Despite her efforts to continue training over the past two years, her struggle with POTS and the demands of maintaining peak fitness led her to conclude that "it was time" to end her professional career, which began in 2004.
As she transitions away from competitive tennis, Chan is preparing for the next phase of her career, having obtained a Level A coaching certificate from the Chinese Taipei Tennis Association. When Chan is honored at the retirement ceremony at the Australian Open, she will become the first player from Taiwan to receive such recognition at a Grand Slam tournament. Chan shared that Australian Open CEO Craig Tiley proposed the retirement ceremony in 2025 after learning about her plans, and she agreed.
The ceremony holds special significance for Chan, as she considers the 2004 Australian Open Junior Championships women's doubles title a pivotal moment in her career. Chan, who began playing tennis at age six, won a total of 32 Women's Tennis Association (WTA) women's doubles titles and achieved the world No. 1 ranking in women's doubles in 2017, a remarkable year during which she and Hingis won eight doubles titles.