As geoscience senior Hannah Yip  prepares for her last season as an MSU tennis player, she reflects on her collegiate career, how she got to where she is now and where she plans to head in the future after graduating.

Yip has dominated on the courts for the Mustangs, and with graduation on the horizon she is ready to serve up one last chapter.

Yip grew up in Ipoh, Malaysia and first got into tennis at a young age of eight-years-old. For her, tennis started as a way to spend time with her parents, who also dabbled in tennis through a club membership. Tennis soon became a way for her family to spend time together. 

“We were under a membership, like under that club. So my parents just got into tennis and then I think I was just watching them play, and I was like ‘oh, that seems fun.’ It’s also a way to spend time with my parents in that sense,” Yip said. 

Yip’s childhood coach told her dad that she could play competitively, and thus began her career of competitive tennis.

 While competing at the college level was never on the forefront of Yip’s mind, she realized she could use her skill of tennis to further along her academic career in geology.

“I actually didn’t think of doing college tennis to begin with, at one point in my life, I was kind of like, ‘I don’t want to really do this anymore… ‘ I was like, ‘maybe I’ll just pursue academia, like more on the academic route, back home.’ But my parents were like, ‘you should just try college tennis and just give it a shot, and if it doesn’t work out, you can always go back home,’” Yip said.

After some convincing from her parents Yip decided to take a chance and compete at the collegiate level. After emailing multiple Division II schools with geology programs, she only heard back from a few college coaches who were looking to recruit her based on the budget that was provided. One of the coaches was MSU head tennis coach Scott Linn.

“He was one of the only ones, and I think it just all sort of worked out in the end,” Yip said.

While Yip has dominated on the tennis courts, she doesn’t really have plans to continue her tennis playing journey.

“It’s also a sport I could actually probably formally say goodbye to it… definitely not professional tennis, maybe like part time coaching, but other than that I don’t plan to pursue more than what I have already done,” Yip said. 

Growing up Yip had several great memories that tennis provided for her. One of her favorite memories was getting to represent Malaysia in tournament.

“I get to represent the country, because I have the opportunity to do that a few times since I was 14… So it’s pretty cool. Just feels like there is a responsibility there where you need to play, and it’s just great when you get to playpeople from all across the world,” Yip said. “You get to experience just different cultures and get to meet different people. I just think that is a reall good memory that I have with tennis.”

While that is Yip’s favorite memory from back home, her favorite one while playing collegiate tennis was when the team made it to Nationals last season.

“I think what stuck to me more was when we knew we made it. That was when we played the courts here, and what struck to me was like that whole moment when we knew we could go. That was something the team had been striving for, and had been a goal of, and it’s pretty cool to see how everyone has the same mindset in going,” Yip said.

The determination and how hard the team worked is what made the moment so memorable for Yip. She says that the whole experience was crazy and felt like a fever dream, and getting to do it with her team made it even better.

After college Yip, plans to enter into a field involving oil and gas with her degree in geoscience. However, where she will end up after graduation depends on what opportunities are available to her.

Throughout her life, especially where tennis and academics are related, Yip has stood by one quote, “practice makes permanent.”

“Practice makes permanent. I’ve kinda learned that since I was think 14 or 13, it has like maybe shaped me into like not striving for perfection, although I tend to do that a lot… I think it’s that quote basically tells me it’s more of an effort thing rather than wanting to be perfect, or wanting to be good. It’s more of the process of it rather than the result of it,” Yip said.