Tai Tzu Ying

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 earned the right to participate in the first division games. She was the youngest player to compete in the first division.

Tai made her debut in an international tournament in 2007 at the 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 on to 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 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 medalist Sayaka Sato in the final. This was the first international title she would win, at the age of only 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. Tai was awarded best rookie athlete in the 2011 Sports Elite Awards.

In the early half of the 2012 season, her best achievements were the reaching the semi-finals in the All England Open and being ranked as 16th in the world. Tai represented her country as the second women's singles behind Cheng Shao-chieh at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. 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 run at the Olympics was stopped by the eventual gold medalist from China Li Xuerui in the round of 16. In September, she claimed her first ever 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 truly entered the upper echelons and future of the women's game with her victory in Japan and increasingly impressive performances and 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. She took part in the World University Championships and won a gold in the women's singles and a silver medal in the women's doubles with her partner Pai Hsiao-ma.

Tai clinched her maiden and only title in 2013 in the Malaysia Open. In other tournaments in the first half of the 2013 season, she often experienced defeat in the quarter-finals, such as in the Germany, Switzerland, Asian Championships, Indonesia, Singapore, as well with her teammate in the Sudirman Cup. Tai then competed in the Summer Universiade and won the silver in the women's singles and bronze in the team event. Her quarter-finals defeat continued into the World Championship. She finally advanced to the final stage in the Chinese Taipei Open but was defeated by Sung Ji-hyun. She next played in the East Asian Games in Tianjin, and won a silver medal in the women's team event. Tai qualified for the Superseries Finals. She defeated Sung Ji-hyun and Porntip Buranaprasertsuk but lost to Wang Shixian in the group stage. She made it to the semi-finals 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 in third place. She reached her first finals in the Superseries event in the Japan Open but was still unable to defeat the world's number one, Li Xuerui. She then won the Hong Kong Open after beating Nozomi Okuhara in straight games. 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 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. She received the most prize money throughout 2016 with US$271,025.

Before the 2017 season started, Tai announced that she would skip that year's World Championships in Glasgow. Tai decided to attend the 2017 Summer Universiade not only out of a desire to earn a title for her home country but also for the bigger picture. Since the Summer Universiade was by far the biggest sporting event held in her home country, only second to the Olympic Games, Tai wanted to welcome the world to see Taiwan. President Tsai commended Tai's decision. She won the Special Contribution Award at the 2017 Sports Elite Awards.

Tai won her first All England Open title in March 2017, beating Ratchanok Intanon in the finals. In April, Tai won the Malaysia Open as well as the Singapore Open beating Carolina Marín in the finals two times in two weeks. Her titles in Malaysia and Singapore were her fourth and fifth consecutive ones. Later in April, she won another title against Akane Yamaguchi in the Asian Championships held in Wuhan, China, marking a sixth consecutive title. It was also the first gold medal for Taiwan in this competition.

After winning 3 matches for her country in the 2017 Sudirman Cup, Tai extended her winning streak to 27 matches, before losing to Thailand's Nitchaon Jindapol in the quarter-finals of the Indonesia Open. In the Universiade, Tai claimed two gold medals by winning the women's singles and team events. She returned to the top of the podium of the Superseries tournament after winning the French Open in October, then defending and securing her third Hong Kong Open title in November.

In 2018, Tai started the season by participating in the Malaysian Master, in which she defeated Chen Yufei in the quarter-finals and Carolina Marín in a thrilling semi-finals, coming from a game down, but lost to Ratchanok Intanon in the final. A week later, at the Indonesia Masters, she won the title after defeating Saina Nehwal. But in her next tournament, the Asian Championships, she won the title after defeating Chen Yufei in the final in Wuhan and regained her world number 1 ranking.

In the 2018 BWF World Championships's third round, she defeated Beiwen Zhang in straight games and broke the record of the longest winning streak with 31 consecutive matches won (Indonesia Masters, All England Open as a defending champion, Asian Championships, Uber Cup, Malaysia Open, Indonesia Open, and BWF World Championships), while the former record of 30 wins was held by Li Xuerui. However, her winning streak was stopped by He Bingjiao in the quarter-finals of the World Championships.

In the 2018 Asian Games, held in Jakarta, Tai won the gold medal by beating P. V. Sindhu in straight games in the final, which became the first big title in her career. She then secured the home soil title, winning the Chinese Taipei Open in October. After crowning the women's singles' title of 2018 Denmark Open, her ranking points reached 101,517. She became the second player in the women's singles category to break 100,000 points, while the first was Li Xuerui, who led with 101,644 points. Although she lost the final game of the 2018 French Open, she still won 9,350 points. Deleting her 2017 French Open 9,200 points, her points eventually came to 101,667, and she became the highest points holder in women's singles category history. Tai qualified to compete at the World Tour Finals and was placed as the top seed. In the group stage, she was placed in group A along with Akane Yamaguchi, P. V. Sindhu, and Beiwen Zhang. In her first match, she defeated Zhang. She lost to Sindhu. However, she retired with an injury in her third group stage match against Yamaguchi after losing the first game 17–21 and trailing 12–11 in the second game. Tai did not reveal the nature of the injury or how it occurred. For her achievements in 2018, she was nominated as BWF Female Player of the Year.

In 2019, she reached the quarter-final stage of the Malaysia Masters, losing to the same opponent of the previous year and her arch-rival Ratchanok Intanon in straight games. In March, she advanced to the finals of the All England Open for the third straight time. However, she unexpectedly lost to the Chinese Chen Yufei, after 11 straight victories over her. She came back and claimed back-to-back titles at the Malaysia Open and Singapore Open, beating the Japanese Akane Yamaguchi and Nozomi Okuhara respectively in the finals in straight games. In July, she was unable to defend her title at the Indonesia Open after losing in the semi-finals to Akane Yamaguchi. Her jinx at the World Championships continued further after she lost to P. V. Sindhu of India in the quarter-finals in 3 games. This was her 5th straight quarter-finals loss at the World Championships.

Tai reached the finals of the China Open, where she lost to insurgent Carolina Marín in three games. She reached the semi-finals of the Korea Open. She aimed for her third title of the year at the Denmark Open and reached the finals again after three years. Despite a good performance, she couldn't stand right against Chen Yufei and lost the finals.

Tai commenced the year by competing at the Malaysia Masters as the first seed. She finished as runner-up after losing to Chen Yufei in straight games. In her fourth straight All England Open finals that year, she won the coveted title for the third time, thereby becoming only the second female player after Ye Zhaoying (1996–99) to clinch three titles by contesting 4 consecutive finals in this tournament. In the final, she beat Chen Yufei with the score of 21–19, 21–15, and with this, she avenged her defeat to Chen at this stage the prior year. She had to settle for second best at the two consecutive Thailand Open Super 1000 events in January, 2021, after losing to Carolina Marín in both occasions in straight games. She finally defeated Marín at the BWF World Tour Finals while contesting her 5th end-of-season championships finals and winning for the third time. She claimed victory over her opponent in three games. Tai was named the BWF Female Player of the Year 2020–2021.

Tai Tzu-ying won the All England 2020 and then struck a rich vein of form at the three-tournament Asian Leg in January 2021, making all three finals and clinching the BWF World Tour Finals 2020. Tai then made the finals of the Tokyo Olympics and won a silver medal after being defeated by the top seed Chen Yufei in an intense match, 18–21, 21–19, 18–21.

In May's Thailand Open, Tai advanced to the finals against Chen Yufei, repeating the 2020 Tokyo Olympic women's singles match-up. In the end, she defeated Chen to avenge her loss at the 2020 Olympics. She met Chen again in the semi-finals of the Indonesia Open. Tai's superb coordination won her in the decider. In the finals, she defeated another Chinese player, Wang Zhiyi, and she successfully claimed her third Indonesia Open title. She won her fourth Taipei Open title with a straight game win over Saena Kawakami in the finals.

In August, at the BWF World Championships that were held in Tokyo, Japan, Tai defeated Slovakian and Vietnamese players and advanced to the quarter-finals, where she defeated Busanan Ongbamrungphan. However, in the semi-finals, she met Chen again, but due to many mistakes in the last game, she lost and claimed the bronze medal. Tai qualified to compete at the World Tour Finals that were held in Bangkok, Thailand. She advanced to the semi-finals with a record of 2 wins and 1 loss in the group stage and then met He Bingjiao in the semi-finals and avenged her defeat in the group stage. In the finals, she lost to Akane Yamaguchi, who was in great form at the time and had won the World Championships for two consecutive years, and finished second.