Tai Tzu-ying

Tai Tzu-ying (born 20 June 1994) is a Taiwanese badminton player.

At the age of 22, she became world No. 1 in the women's singles in December 2016, and she is the women's singles player who has held that title for the longest in BWF history, with 214 weeks (as of 30 August 2022).

Tai made her debut in an international tournament in 2007 Vietnam International.

In 2009, she won the silver medal at the Asian Junior Championships, losing the final match to Chen Xiaojia in straight games.

She represented Kaohsiung City in the National Games and went into the quarter-finals.

Young Tai began to show her potential when she was 15 years old, as she was able to compete at the senior level and become runner-up at the Vietnam Open a Grand Prix tournament.

In December, Tai competed at the East Asian Games for Chinese Taipei, won a bronze medal in the women's singles and helped the team reach the final, settling for a silver medal.

In 2010, she entered the big stage by competing in the Superseries event in Korea Open.

In April, she participated at the World Junior Championships in Mexico, but had to retire in the quarter-finals of 9–16 places due to injury.

In June, she experienced the most memorable thing during her career as a badminton player, when she reached her first Superseries final on her birthday in Singapore Open.

She started in the qualifying draw and went on to reach the final, which she lost to Saina Nehwal in straight games.

In 2011, Tai made good progress by defeating the top ranked player.

She defeated Zhu Lin in the first round of the Australian Open, Wang Xin in the first round of Indonesia Open, and in July, she beat the former world champion Lu Lan in the quarter-finals of the U.S. Open which was a Grand Prix Gold tournament, and beat World Junior silver medalists Sayaka Sato in the final, which became the first international title she won at the age of 17.

She also reached the semi-finals of the Canada, Vietnam, and French Open, where in France, she defeated China's number 1 Wang Shixian in the quarter-finals.

In the early half of 2012 season, her best achievements were the reaching the semi-finals in the All England Open, and ranked as world number 16.

Tai represented her country as the second women's singles behind Cheng Shao-chieh at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

She won the Superseries Finals in Dubai for the second time, becoming the second women's singles player to do so (after Li Xuerui in 2012 and 2013).

She also made history by becoming the first women's singles player to reach the finals in the Superseries Finals three times.

In September, she claimed her first Superseries title in the Japan Open and made history as the youngest player to win a Superseries title (currently the third youngest player, after Ratchanok Intanon who won the India Open in 2013, and Akane Yamaguchi who won the Japan Open in 2013).

She was expected to near the upper echelons and future of the women's game by her victory in Japan and increasingly impressive performances by significant wins over some of the top players.

In October, she won the Chinese Taipei Open against Lindaweni Fanetri in a close rubber games 21–19, 20–22, 22–20.

In November, she competed as the top-seeded player at the World Junior Championships in Chiba, Japan, but fell in the quarter-finals to Sun Yu.

In August 2013, she was recruited by the team Banga Beats to play for them in the Indian Badminton League.

In the 2013 BWF Super Series Masters Finals, she defeated Sung Ji-hyun and Porntip Buranaprasertsuk but lost to Wang Shixian.

She made it to the semifinals and successfully avenged her loss, beating Wang Shixian.

She ended second after losing the final to Li Xuerui.

Tai represented her country at the 2014 Asian Games and won Taiwan's first badminton medal by finishing as the third place.

She won the Hong Kong Open in 2014 after beating Nozomi Okuhara of Japan in straight games, 21–19, 21–11.

She extended her winning streak to the Superseries Finals in Dubai and won the first title for Taiwan in the Superseries finals by beating Korea's Sung Ji-hyun in straight games.

In 2015, she was beaten by Sun Yu in the Singapore Open.

She did not win any titles that year.

In 2016, Tai won the Indonesia Open and the Hong Kong Open to reach World No. 1 for the first time in her career.

She has also won Asian Championships titles thrice in 2017, 2018 and 2023.

Tai's career began when she was in elementary school, as she was influenced by her father who was a firefighter and the director of Kaohsiung city's badminton committee.

Tai started playing badminton in the fourth or fifth grade of elementary school, and in the sixth grade, she played at the National ranking tournament, won the title in the second division, and earning the right to participate in the first division games.

She was the youngest player to compete in the first division.

The 18-year-old, ranked 13th in the world and seeded 10th won all matches in the group stage defeating Anu Nieminen of Finland and Victoria Montero of Mexico.

Her pace at the Olympics was stopped by the eventual gold medalist from China Li Xuerui in the round of 16.

Tai was the women's singles silver medalist in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and the gold medalist in 2017 Summer Universiade and at the 2018 Asian Games.

She has won the year-end tournament BWF Superseries/World Tour Finals four times, and the All England Open thrice as of 2020.