Juniors Chan started playing in the
ITF Junior Circuit in 2002 and reached the semifinal stage at her first
ITF junior event. With solid performances, both in junior and challenger events, her combined junior ranking reached No. 2 on May 24, 2004. However, her most significant junior victory came at the
2004 Australian Open Junior Championships, where she partnered
Sun Shengnan to win the doubles trophy.
2003–2005 While still a junior, Chan entered her very first pro-circuit event in Taiwan in 2003. She reached the semifinals in singles and the quarterfinals in doubles. She started her professional career in 2004. By the end of the year, she already was the singles title holder of three $10k events, including Colombo, Jakarta, and Taipei. She also won three doubles titles at Jakarta, Haibara, and Mount Gambier. Her 2005 season got off to a strong start with a win at a $25k event in Taipei. She also won a $50k event in Fukuoka. Later that year, she qualified for the
US Open, but failed to defeat
Serena Williams in the first round. After the US Open, she played two qualifying events in Beijing and Seoul, but failed to enter the main draw. However, she teamed up with
Chuang Chia-jung to win her first tour-level doubles title in Seoul.
2006 Chan played in the qualifying events of all four
Grand Slam tournaments and qualified into the main draws in
Wimbledon and the
US Open, but failed to beat resurgent Australian
Alicia Molik and Belgian
Kirsten Flipkens, respectively. Her breakthrough and first tour-level win came at the
Tokyo Open, where she reached the semifinal stage by defeating local favourite and two-time winner
Ai Sugiyama. The victory marked her first top-30 win. She also participated in the doubles event and reached the finals, once again partnering Chuang Chia-jung. On the Challenger Tour, she won the singles titles in Melbourne, Fukuoka, Kurume, and Kaohsiung. Together with regular partner Chuang, she also won the doubles titles in Sydney, Gosford, Fukuoka, Kurume, and Kaohsiung. After her victory in Kaohsiung, she surged into the top 100 and was ranked No. 73 in singles.
2007 To establish herself at the WTA Tour level, Chan only participated in those events at the beginning of 2007. She entered the main draws of the
Australian Open, at
Pattaya,
Bangalore, and
Indian Wells, but failed to advance past the first round. In
Miami, she reached the second round by defeating
Nuria Llagostera Vives, before losing to top seed
Maria Sharapova. Chan finally found her footing after entering the
clay court season. In
Charleston, she qualified into the main draw, and stunned No. 39 ranked
Séverine Brémond in two sets to set up a rematch against Serena Williams. Chan was 5–3 up before Serena retired with a groin injury. However, in the third round, she was defeated by
Venus Williams in straight sets. To improve her singles game, Chan entered three ITF pro events after Charleston and won all three of them. With the success in three events, her ranking rose to a career-high No. 50 on June 11. In
Bangkok, Chan reached her first WTA singles final, but lost to No. 49 ranked
Flavia Pennetta, in two sets. Her singles achievements aside, Chan also had success in doubles in 2007. Awarded with a wildcard entry, Chan and Chuang reached the finals of the Australian Open, which was Chan's first Grand Slam doubles event. On their way to the final, they defeated 2006 US Open doubles finalists
Dinara Safina and
Katarina Srebotnik, and 2006 Australian Open and Wimbledon champions
Yan Zi and
Zheng Jie. In February, Chan and Chuang participated in two more events. They reached the final at both
Pattaya and
Bangalore, and won the doubles title in the latter. In their
Indian Wells debut, Chan and Chuang again stormed into the final with back-to-back wins over 2006 Australian Open and Wimbledon champs Yan Zi and Zheng Jie in the quarterfinals, and 2006 US Open champions
Vera Zvonareva and
Nathalie Dechy in the semifinals. However, they lost the final to 2006
Roland Garros champions
Lisa Raymond and
Samantha Stosur in straight sets. Had they won the final match, they would have defeated every 2006 Grand Slam champion team in one single event. At that point, they had made it into the final in all six tour-level doubles events they had entered. Their finals streak was broken in
Miami, when they lost to Raymond and Stosur in the semifinal.
2008 At the
German Open in Berlin, Chan became the last player whom top-ranked
Justine Henin ever defeated before she retired the following week. Chan represented her country at the
Beijing Olympics, in both singles and doubles.
2009 Chan started the season with an unexpected lead of 5–1 against world No. 4,
Elena Dementieva, in their first-round match in
Auckland. Chan ultimately lost the match to the eventual champion. After that, her results were uninspiring other than winning a round at the
Australian Open, her first time to do so. Chan was diagnosed with a fatigue fracture in her left foot, which stopped her season for three months after the
Miami Open to when the grass-court season kicked off. She suffered quite a number of upsets after her comeback, but rebounded just in time for the Asian tour in the autumn. She delighted home crowds by sweeping both the singles and doubles (with Chuang) titles in the Taipei $100k tournament. For the fourth year in a row, Chan finished the season in the top 100. On the doubles court, Chan shocked the world-number-one team of
Cara Black and
Liezel Huber with
Monica Niculescu, in the quarterfinals of the Premier-level tournament in
Stanford. They were defeated by Serena and Venus Williams in the final after taking out another seeded pair,
Maria Kirilenko and
Sorana Cîrstea.
2010–2014 At the
2010 US Open, Chan beat two former WTA top-50s,
Anne Keothavong and
Tamira Paszek, to make her first round of 32 in a Grand Slam tournament, her previous best results had been the round of 64 at the 2008 US Open, 2009 Australian Open, and
2010 Wimbledon Championships. In the third round, she lost 1–6, 0–6 to top seed and world No. 2,
Caroline Wozniacki. At the
2011 Australian Open, she reached the final of mixed doubles with
Paul Hanley, their first major final. Along the way, they defeated the defending champions, and fourth-seeded Cara Black and
Leander Paes, in two set-tiebreakers. However, this team lost the final to second seeds
Daniel Nestor and
Katarina Srebotnik in three sets. Chan reached the semifinals of the
2012 Carlsbad Open, losing to
Marion Bartoli in three sets. 2014, she lost the title match of the
Taipei Challenger to
Vitalia Diatchenko, in three sets.
2015: Australian Open doubles final Chan lost her third Grand Slam doubles final at the
Australian Open. She and her sister won their fourth WTA doubles title together at the
Cincinnati Open, and by doing so, now have the second-most doubles titles for a pair of sisters in WTA history after only Serena and Venus Williams. The Chans previous three WTA doubles titles came at
Shenzhen in 2013,
Eastbourne in 2014, and
Pattaya City in 2015. Cincinnati represents their biggest title yet, their first at the Premier-5 level. They would go on to win another title at the
Japan Women's Open in Tokyo.
2017: US Open doubles champion, world No. 1 In February 2017, Chan teamed up with former world No. 1,
Martina Hingis, for the women's doubles competition at the
Dubai Championships. Hingis had split from short-time partner
CoCo Vandeweghe due to limited success together. In March, Chan won at Indian Wells with Hingis, as they defeated
Lucie Hradecká and
Kateřina Siniaková in the final. This was the first
Premier Mandatory title for Chan, the first big title of her career. The team added titles in
Madrid and
Rome with final victories over
Tímea Babos and
Andrea Hlaváčková and
Ekaterina Makarova and
Elena Vesnina, respectively. Chan and Hingis played their first Grand Slam tournament together at the
French Open. They advanced to the semifinals, where they lost to the eventual champions,
Bethanie Mattek-Sands and
Lucie Šafářová. In the
Summer Universiade in August, Chan teamed up with her sister Hao-ching to a gold medal in the women's doubles. Then, Chan withdrew from the mixed doubles semifinals due to heatstroke. This move drew criticism from her partner,
Hsieh Cheng-peng, and the public, who interpreted the event as Chan abandoning Hsieh to prepare for the US Open. Chan and Hingis won their first Grand Slam women's doubles title together at the
US Open when they defeated Hradecká and Siniaková in straight sets. This was their seventh title of the season. After the US Open, Chan released a statement apologizing to Hsieh. They would win their next title at the
Wuhan Open, their third Premier-5 crown of the year. The following tournament, the season's last Premier Mandatory event, they would win their ninth title of the season at the
Beijing event. That means they won three out of the four Premier Mandatory events in 2017, only missing out on the Miami Open where they lost in the semifinals. It also meant that they won six of the nine Premier-5/Premier-Mandatory tournaments of the season. Chan and Hingis finished the season as joint world No. 1, only the fifth time in WTA history that a team had shared the year-end top spot.
2018: Struggles with form, French Open mixed-doubles title Chan struggled after Hingis retired. Apart from winning her maiden mixed-doubles title at
French Open with
Ivan Dodig, she did not win any titles during her 33-week reign as world No. 1. She finally dropped out of that position after losing in the second round at
Roland Garros. After a Premier title in San Jose (with
Květa Peschke) and a Premier-5 final in Montreal (with Ekaterina Makarova), Chan returned to the No.-1 ranking in doubles only for one week before dropping out of top ten later in the season.
2019: Renewed doubles success; two mixed-doubles titles Chan re-united with her sister Hao-ching at the start of the 2019 season, and they found immediate success. They reached the final of the
Brisbane International, and followed that up with wins in the
Hobart and
Doha championships and a run to the quarterfinals in the
Australian Open. In March, they reached the semifinals at
Indian Wells, and in September, they won the
Pan Pacific Open, beating sisters
Hsieh Su-wei and
Hsieh Yu-chieh in the final, to record their 14th WTA tournament win together. It was the first time the sisters had won four tournaments in a single season. The following week, they reached the quarterfinals of the
Wuhan Open. On 7 October, they became the fifth team to qualify for the
2019 WTA Finals In mixed doubles, Chan and Dodig won their second
French Open title and followed it up with the
Wimbledon title.
2024: Paris Olympics She took part in the women's doubles at the
Paris Olympics alongside her sister, Chan Hao-ching, but they lost in the first round to
Barbora Krejčíková and Kateřina Siniaková.
2026: Retirement On 21 January 2026, she announced her retirement. ==Equipment==