Venus Williams has played doubles with the very best, including her sister Serena. So when the seven-time Grand Slam singles champion called Janice Tjen her best partner of 2026, it said a lot about how far the Indonesian has come in a year.

The pair reached the semifinals of the Guangzhou Open last week as a wild-card team. It was Venus’s first doubles semifinal since the 2016 Wimbledon run with Serena. 

“It was an incredible experience playing with her,” Venus told Tennis Asia TV. “I think she has clearly been my best partner this year.” 

In conversation with EssentiallySports at the ongoing WTA 250 Chennai Open, we asked Tjen what it was like to share a court with the American legend. 

“Definitely, playing with someone like Venus, there are so many things you can take home, and it’s nice to hear what she said about our partnership,” she said in the interview. “She is a great player with a lot of experience, and we talked quite a bit, especially on the court.”

“There are so many different kinds of situations on the court that can happen, and I think the first thing that I can remember is to just keep going, even though maybe the scoreline doesn’t say so,” Tjen explained. “Sometimes things don’t go the way you want them to, but just keep going and keep trusting yourself.” 

That advice was tested in their semifinal, when Tjen and Venus saved four match points against Polina Kudermetova and Maria Timofeeva before falling 6-4, 6-7(8), 10-6 in the match tiebreak. Venus later revealed that her husband, Andrea Preti, had suggested the partnership.

We also asked Tjen whether she could picture herself still competing at 46, as Venus is now. It was an idea she could not take seriously. 

“That’s pretty tough. I mean, it’s amazing that she’s still playing,” she said. “Her love for tennis is amazing. She doesn’t need to play tennis anymore, but the fact that she’s still playing is amazing. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that. But we’ll see.”

The Indonesian has previously named Ashleigh Barty as her role model growing up, and when we asked which part of the Australian’s game she would most like to borrow, she could not settle on one. 

“I think she’s great. That’s why she had the success that she had,” Tjen said. “She’s very strong with everything that she did. I think also her composure and her fire. She had a lot of fire on the court.” 

Composure and fire are a fair description of what carried Tjen through the most important week of her career, in this very city.

Janice Tjen on national history, college and defending the title in Chennai

Twelve months ago, Tjen won the Chennai Open in a breakout week, beating Australia’s Kimberly Birrell 6-4, 6-3 in the final. She became the first Indonesian woman to win a WTA singles title in 23 years, since Angelique Widjaja, and then swept the doubles title with compatriot Aldila Sutjiadi on the same day.

Earlier that season she had qualified for the US Open, the first Indonesian in a Grand Slam singles main draw since Widjaja in 2004, and beat 24th seed Veronika Kudermetova. She has since climbed to a career-high No. 35. Janice Tjen admitted she never saw any of it coming. 

“Obviously, I didn’t think that all the things that happened last year were going to happen,” she said. “I just take things one at a time.” 

She thanked her sponsors, her parents, and her current coach for the guidance that made it possible and stated that she had no expectations in 2025, which helped her play freely. 

“Last year was obviously a little bit of a free run for me. It was a magical run, and when I look back, it’s a bit ridiculous to be honest,” Tjen added. 

Her actual journey started in US college tennis, where she played at Oregon before transferring to Pepperdine. Tjen was named West Coast Conference Player of the Year in 2023 and graduated with a sociology degree next year. She has been real about how expensive the sport is, which is why the college route made sense. 

“I don’t think I was ready. Definitely not ready physically and mentally to turn pro right after my junior career,” she said. “Throughout college, I learned so much about how to have a better work ethic, how to work hard and be resilient, and time management as well.” 

The 24-year-old said the four years also gave her space to decide whether she even wanted a professional career, calling them “a big stepping stone” towards turning pro. She turned pro in 2018, and since then she has accumulated 145 wins on the WTA tour on the singles front and four doubles titles on the doubles front. 

The foundation lies in the deep values instilled in her by her parents. The world No. 75 describes her Asian parents as firm but not strict, and says that their core lesson was never to back down from a challenge. She recalled an incident from her childhood when she had to take a big test and was scared and had asked for more time to study for it, but her parents did not allow that. 

“They were like, you have to face it no matter what. You just have to do it,” she said. “I think that was the biggest thing that my parents taught me. To never shy away from challenges.”

Her success is already changing things at home, where badminton is more prevalent. When asked if attitudes have changed towards tennis in Indonesia, she referred to a very practical sign. 

“I think booking tennis courts is a bit tough. I think that’s a very, very good sign,” she said with a smile. “Hopefully there will be more and more young people who want to play tennis.”

2026 is her first full year on the WTA Tour, and it has not been dreamy for the 24-year-old. She won doubles titles in Hobart and Birmingham but no singles trophy, and she said the step up in competition taught her a great deal. 

“This year, I definitely learned so much, and managing expectations is the biggest piece for me,” Tjen said. Learning to bounce back and taking things one match at a time were the other lessons, and she named all three as “the biggest thing that I need to be able to do better next year.”

Tjen is in Chennai as the top seed and defending champion, and she has already reached the quarterfinal of the event, where she will face sixth seed Polina Kudermetova. The Indonesian went past Katherine Hui and Joana Garland in the first two rounds in straight sets. 

She is also without Sutjiadi this time in the doubles, saying that her partner had been trying to secure a spot in Tokyo for the WTA Finals after her career-best year and needed a break. When asked if it is easier to win or defend a title, Tjen didn’t want to get ahead of herself. 

“Hopefully we will see if I can defend the title, so I can’t really say much about this year yet, but I think I am on a pretty good track.” 

A year after Chennai made her a national story, she is three wins away from writing the next chapter in the same place.