Vivian Yang landed in Charlottesville for her official visit early in the summer, jet-lagged after some 21 hours of travel from Auckland, New Zealand. Final Exercises were in the University’s rearview mirror, and the streets and courts were quiet — only two-thirds of the coaching staff and none of her future teammates were there to greet her. She was quickly whisked away from the airport to see the Rotunda, taking in the sights on a warm summer evening.
It rained the next two days of Yang’s visit, a far cry from the weather to which she had grown accustomed in her two years of tennis at Pepperdine in Malibu, California. She spent those 48 hours with Coach Sara O’Leary and associate head coach Gina “Pichi” Suarez-Malaguti, taking swings at a golf simulator, visiting a winery and getting a taste of Charlottesville’s food scene.
It was hardly the perfect recruiting visit, but it worked for the Virginia coaches, and it worked for Yang. A few days later, her commitment was announced with a photo of her in a white Cavaliers t-shirt, emblazoned with two words — “nothing easy.”
According to Yang, what ultimately convinced her to choose Virginia over any other program was the degree to which it would help her improve her tennis. She came to the University several weeks before the semester began to work on her game, forgoing some professional opportunities to instead focus on refining her tennis in Charlottesville.
“That was a big thing that I had to learn,” Yang said. “That putting in the work doesn't necessarily mean you'll get [results] immediately and you'll see it immediately, but, in the long term, it's going to help with your season, it's going to help with your career. It's giving you tools, but also giving you lessons about life.”
Fast-forward six months, and Yang — a left-handed junior from Auckland, New Zealand — has quickly established herself as a star for the Cavaliers, earning the nod as Virginia’s top singles player in five of its six duals thus far. Having started the 2025-26 season ranked the No. 114 singles player in the country, she has since climbed to No. 30, surpassing her previous career high of No. 61 as a Wave.
Yang noted that, throughout the fall, she did not actually have that much individual training time. Instead, she focused on staying present at the team practices and taking care of herself in order to help the team perform. Though results are not always the focus of fall tennis, the wins still came.
Opening the fall season with a pair of top-50 singles wins, Yang went 11-1 in singles and 7-2 in doubles to start the season. She earned qualification for the singles bracket of the NCAA Individual Championships at the Atlantic Regional, qualifying for the doubles bracket late at the Conference Masters.
But while other players took a week or two to train and rehab in preparation for the national tournament, Yang flew to Poland to represent New Zealand at the Billie Jean King Cup — a major international team tournament in women’s tennis.
“I really just stayed present, and I didn't actually care that much about results,” Yang said. “The Billie Jean King Cup was a really last-minute thing that came along. And I was like, ‘this is such a good opportunity in my career’ … It's pretty crazy, being in a stadium with like 3,000 people cheering against you.”
Arriving at the NCAA Championships tired, having barely had the chance to sleep in her quick-turnaround trip from Poland to Florida, Yang’s first opponent was Spanish senior Carolina Gomez Alonso, representing Arkansas. After taking the first set 6-1, disaster struck when Yang rolled her ankle, struggling to move as well for the remainder of the match.
Knocked out of the singles bracket, Yang was still slated to play in the doubles one that started the following day, but was not sure if her body would let that happen.
“I was not going to step on the court,” Yang said. “I couldn't do it, I was in so much pain … I was on crutches when I got off the court and I [could] not even walk.”
She still opted to warm up, if only to see what she was capable of and find out if there was a way she could give her partner, graduate student Melodie Collard, a shot in the tournament. Fortunately, Yang had a few weapons that did not require much movement — a strong lefty serve and a decent backhand she could hit off one foot — and that was enough.
“We just problem-solved,” Yang said. “With what I had, I could lob, I could serve, I could hit the ball really hard without moving. And then we won.”
Yang and Collard, hobbled by the former’s injury, won their first match before falling in the second round in straight sets to the ultimate champions — junior Gabriella Broadfoot and freshman Victoria Osuigwe from NC State. The experience, though marking the end of the fall season, was reflective of the more challenging and competitive environment that had motivated Yang to come to Virginia, and what had driven her to such a successful first semester as a Cavalier.
The fall, despite strong on-court results and improvement, did not come without setbacks off of the court. After coming from a small, idyllic school in Pepperdine, where the balance between tennis and academics came more easily, Yang had to adjust to a more demanding workload. It took a lot of conviction for her to keep tennis and growth front and center, and though the academic adjustment was a challenge, Yang continued to remind herself that a key reason she chose Virginia was in order to get out of her comfort zone and push herself to higher levels.
According to Yang, there is no singular motivation that drives her to pursue tennis at such lengths. She wants to pursue professional tennis after her college career, and certainly has some of the tools to make that work. And while some might pursue tennis professionally for fame, economic success or any number of other reasons, Yang has her own added goal, one that she attributes to receiving a pair of elephant plushies at a young age.
Yang aims to leverage her professional career to build a big enough platform to start a foundation for protecting elephants, which she could promote and support using her resources. Given the high-level tennis tools she has honed over the past six months, her planned elephant-protection foundation is definitely a possibility. For now, though, her focus remains on improving and being a part of the Virginia program.
After spending her winter break treating injuries and visiting a friend at Princeton, Yang has started the spring season 3-1 in singles and 6-0 in doubles with Collard. She has maintained much of her fall momentum and is now cementing herself as a bona fide star on one of college tennis’ best teams. She continues to find community in Charlottesville, including at Westminster Presbyterian Church — where she met a woman who hosted her on multiple holidays when she could not get back to New Zealand — and in her team. For Yang, the coming spring season is just as much about her support system as anything that takes place on the court.
“Winning is important, but I think, to me, what is most important is cultivating yourself as an individual person, and being a better version of yourself than when [you] begin that process,” Yang said. “If I look back in May, and I [can] say I’ve grown as a person, and if I have had more experience under my belt, and [have enjoyed] the season with the girls, to me that would be a really successful semester.”
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