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Julia Elbaba has certainly earned her Blue Chip status. Her results have given her a top ten position in the Babolat rankings and a place just over the top 100 in the ITF Junior Rankings.

With all this success came quite a few college tennis opportunities for the petite 17 year old, and she took her time weighing her decision carefully until the very last minute. It was just this week - as the signing papers were staring her in the face - that Elbaba finally made her decision to join the Virginia Cavaliers.

Elbaba had been looking at four schools closely over the last six months, with Virginia, UCLA, Georgia and Miami all in contention. She took four official visits and says she considered many factors - "academics, work ethic in fitness and tennis, whether I could work well with the coach, and the unity of the girls on the team."

New Yorker Elbaba is a native of Oyster Bay on Long Island. She just last month won the USTA Regional Championships at the place she trains, the USTA National Training Center in Flushing Meadow, the home of the U.S. Open.

It's been quite an exciting year for Julia Elbaba. Despite the pressure of picking a college, she swept two ITF Junior events - the Jalisco Junior Cup in February and the Costa Rica Bowl in March, winning the doubles of each with different partner. She had actually made it to the finals of the Jalisco event the previous year.