Cao Makes Herself Home at Harvard

Any international athlete who arrives at Harvard knows that there are a lot of changes to deal with. There’s the distance from home, new foods, a new academic environment, and for some, fellow classmates who say, “O.M.G. I love your accent!”

But for freshman tennis star and proud Aussie Holly Cao, the No. 4 singles player on the Crimson women’s tennis team, the biggest challenge came in the form of white fluff.

“I mean I’ve never seen snow before I came [to Harvard],” Cao explained. “I’m from Sydney, and it’s always warm, always sunny. I came here and I see all of this snow, all of this rain, all of this, this weather.”

Despite the weather, Cao has been taking Harvard by storm, winning her fourth consecutive match in the No. 4 singles spot last Saturday when the team beat Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y. Cao, along with the other freshmen on the team, has provided depth and sparked the Crimson to a much-improved 9-7 overall and 2-0 Ivy record this season.

“Holly is really a warm, caring, and fun, easy-going young woman,” Harvard coach Traci Green said. “She’s a great student as well as a super fierce competitor.”

After starting tennis at the age of six, when she first realized that she was “quite good at it,” Cao rose in the Australian junior ranks, becoming the No. 1 junior Australian player in 2006.

One of Cao’s crowning moments came that same year, when she played for the third time at the junior Australian Open at Melborune Park and raised her ranking to No. 699 in the world.

“That was really awesome because I played for three years straight at Melbourne Park,” Cao said. “We were playing the second week and we would have meals where all the professionals ate, and we saw them on a daily basis. Crowds were cheering us, it was really cool.”

At Harvard, Cao has continued this success with a record of 10-3 overall this year. In her 10 victories, Cao has taken down some big names including the Big Red’s former No. 1/No. 2 singles player, Sinziana Chis. Cao also won her 16-person flight in the William and Mary Invitational Tournament in September.

“I’m a pretty calm player,” Cao remarked. “I don’t let my emotions overpower me. I tend to think logistically on the court, but I like to hit a lot of winners.”

Despite this success, Cao’s freshman year has hardly been easy, with the weather turning out to be the least of her problems.

The biggest hurdle Cao faced was overcoming a fractured kneecap from a biking accident and an injured wrist that kept her out for the majority of last semester.

“I’m all better now,” Cao said with a hint of relief. “It’s good to be back on the court. I’m trying to improve with each match I play.”

Add her injuries to the fact that over 10,000 miles separate her from warm Sydney and her family that she has yet to see this year, and it’s surprising that Cao seems to manage everything so well.

“I think she’s overcome a lot of adversity and she’s done a really great job,” sophomore Sam Rosekrans said last Saturday.

“I feel like it was hard for all of the freshmen the first couple of weeks of school, to adjust to a new environment,” Green said. “It was probably particularly hard for Holly to come from Australia, but as the weeks went on and the months went on she started getting more comfortable with life in the U.S.”

Yet being so far from home has helped Cao find a new family in her teammates, a welcome experience after being a singles player all her life.

“For all junior tennis players it’s a very individual sport—it’s a very selfish sport. You just want yourself to win and you don’t care about any other,” Cao said. “But here in college it’s more of a team sport. We want the others on the team to do just as well as we do. That’s the biggest transition going from an individual mindset to wanting the whole team to do really well.”

Cao has learned how to deal with being an international athlete at Harvard with the help of captain Laura Peterzan and freshman Louise Laciny, who both come from England

“We come from all parts of the world and different states in the U.S.,” Cao said. “They’ve been very helpful, because it’s hard when you are so far away from home.”

With the help of her teammates, Cao has refused to let any obstacle get the better of her, and has continued to show the success that prompted Tennis Australia to call her “one of Australia’s best young players.”

But Cao is not focused on this praise. Instead, she is just focusing on this weekend, when the Crimson takes on Princeton.

“I am so excited, because I think it’s going to be a tough match, a long match, but we are prepared,” Cao said excitedly. “We’ve been working really hard for the Ivy League season. Hopefully, we will come away with the win.”