Eight-year-old Stephane Lin had a cough that she couldn’t quite seem to kick.

One day, Stephane’s coughing was the worst it had ever been, and it kept her up through the night. Eventually, she was having trouble even breathing. That’s about when her memory stops for a while.

When Stephane came to later that night, she was sitting in a hospital bed, hooked up to wires, watching her mother, Ruuzhi Chen, crying in a chair next to her.

Luckily, it was far from the worst a trip to the emergency room can be. The diagnosis was asthma. But the bad news was that the doctor warned attacks such as this would only get worse, unless Stephane adopted some sort of physical activity. He didn’t make a specific demand, but he made it clear something had to change. Nobody in the room could have seen just how far that change would take her.

None of the Lin children had grown up playing sports. Ruuzhi did not push it on them, and their father, Haide Lin, is a violinmaker who owned a shop on University Avenue. When looking for ideas on what activity to take up, they had to look outside their immediate family.

So it was time for a trip to Guangzhou, China, to see Stephane’s grandfather.

Stephane’s grandfather was a passionate senior tennis player, who had developed a relationship with the Chinese Women’s National Team, who played on a court close to his home. Stephane was reluctant to begin playing tennis, but her grandfather dragged her to the courts on which the national team practiced. Whatever time was not spent playing the game with her grandfather and other teachers was spent watching the national team practice just a few courts over.

Watching tennis at the national level is a very special thing. Tennis is a game of emotions and attitude, and professional players consistently say that playing for one’s country raises the stakes of the game more than any individual competition does.

Being able to watch the national team imparted the pride of the game upon Stephane at such an early age. But that’s not to say things came easy for Stephane immediately.

“I took my first swing and I did a 360 (turn) and the ball ended up behind me,” Stephane remembers with a laugh. “So at first I was like, OK, I’m giving up now. But I couldn’t give up on my health … and I always like a challenge.”

The family stayed in Guangzhou for about a month before heading back home, and Stephane felt she had to quickly make a decision about what her focuses were going to be. She played violin, cello and flute, and it seemed nearly impossible to juggle all of those if she was intent on pursuing tennis seriously. You might think her violin-making father would have preferred that she kept her passion for music going, but that’s not the way Stephane remembers it.

“My dad would tell me, ‘Would you rather have three (dull) knives or one sharp knife?’” Stephane recalls. “He loved our interest in music, but he knew I had to choose what was better for me because of my health.”

Given the chance to go with the knife of her choice, Stephane happily picked the tennis racket.

The sharpening process did not take long. She had already started playing in USTA Tournaments when she turned 9, and by 12, she was dominating them. At about the same time, her physical conditioning had also improved her breathing to the point that her asthma became an afterthought. Her commitment to the game had solved the problem it was initially meant to address, and she was being rewarded with win after win.

Stephane’s older brother George Lin ended up going to school at UC Berkeley, just down the road from their father’s shop, and only a 30-minute drive away from their home in Pinole, California. George picked up tennis along with Stephane, albeit not as seriously as she did. Still, George’s time at UC Berkeley brought Stephane down to the campus two or three times a week to play at Willard Park and occasionally even at the Hellman Tennis Complex.

Improving her game at Berkeley and breezing through middle school USTA tournaments, Stephane arrived at Pinole Valley High School as a top college recruit. High school tennis simply wasn’t going to be much of a challenge for her.

“People didn’t take tennis as seriously as I did,” Stephane says. “They didn’t spend the time like I did, so it really wasn’t even fair for them to play against me.”

Stephane came to an arrangement with her high school coach. She would play matches but did not have to practice with her team — she was better served training with her private coach. She still came to practice once a week but more as an assistant coach than a player. Stephane racked up wins and awards, such as a NCS Division 1 girl’s singles title and East Bay girl’s tennis Player of the Year. Even with all that extracurricular activity, Stephane managed to find the time to be valedictorian of her graduating class.

A five-star, top-100 recruit, Stephane received plenty of scholarship offers from top tennis schools. Cal head coach Amanda Augustus had recruited Stephane with a walk-on position for the Bears, and Stephane had her heart set on UC Berkeley — which is unsurprising, considering how familiar she had become with the school. With a full academic scholarship to go along with the walk-on offer, she enrolled. She did not, however, take the spot.

I didn’t feel at home when I was visiting (other) schools,” Stephane says. “And I shouldn’t have accepted them if I didn’t feel like I was home. Berkeley was my top school. l didn’t even think about playing on the varsity team my first year. I was a little bit scared, and my parents said to focus on my academics.”

Because even the best college players in the nation don’t generally go off to pro careers, education was still the focus for Stephane in the college process. Even if she wasn’t going to be on the court for the Bears, being a Bear was still important.

That didn’t mean Stephane was going to stop playing tennis entirely. She joined the club team upon arriving on campus. Unfortunately, the competition she encountered on the club team did not turn out to be much tougher than what she found in high school. And just like in high school, Stephane dominated. Blasting through the season with ease, Stephane propelled the team to a championship at the 2014 USTA Tennis On Campus Championships in Surprise, Arizona.

“They only practiced two times a week, and I just felt like it was not enough for me,” Stephane says. “They took it as a fun club thing, and I breezed through my matches. I thought I needed something more challenging, because I want to be the best I can be and push my limits everyday.”

The championships took place before summer break, and Stephane’s summer plans proved pivotal. Stephane went back to the same spot in China where she had first learned to play and ended up actually training with the Chinese Women’s National Team. And once again, it was the team’s discipline and passion that propelled Stephane to make her next big move.

“They train so hard in the heat,” Stephane says, “it made me think if I can play through this, America is going to be a lot easier.”

Stephane and Augustus were in contact throughout her freshman year, so for Augustus, it may not have been much of a surprise to see Stephane ultimately reach the point where she wanted to take on the extra challenge of joining the varsity team.

“I was just checking in with her, as I do with other freshmen,” Augustus says. “It was an ongoing conversation. Just as people try to find a major or an interest, it can change with your time on campus as you find your passion.”

Stephane wrote an email to Augustus at midnight the day she got back from China, explaining that she was ready to take on the commitment that joining the varsity team demanded from her. At 6:30 a.m., an email was waiting in Stephane’s inbox. Her spot on the team was still waiting.

A week later, they made it official. Stephane was a varsity tennis player.

With a winning record in singles through one and a half years of her career on the team, her success is undeniable. 12 years removed from taking up the game as a medical necessity, Stephane is making a name for herself and thriving on one of the premier women’s tennis programs in the nation.

“Everybody finds the sport in their own unique way, and I’m just happy she found the sport,” Augustus says. “She loves to play and she loves to compete, and she’s a really good teammate. However one finds their way to tennis, I’m supportive of it.”

Contact Andrew Wild at [email protected]