In April last year, Taiwanese badminton ace Tai Tzu-ying finally opened up about her future in the sport in which she had competed professionally since 2009.
“My plan is to retire after the end of next year’s season. Even if I’m still able to compete, I would prefer not to,” she said at a promotional event.
If true, the Paris Olympics would be her last stab at an Olympic gold medal, a prize some might think a player who has topped the rankings in women’s singles for a record total of 214 weeks — between December 2016 and September 2022 — should have won at some point in her career.
Photo: CNA
In fact, whether because of bad timing, bad luck, injuries or inopportune defeats, Tai went without a podium finish at the two Olympics and multiple World Championships she played in until winning a silver medal at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
Since then she has also won a silver and bronze medal at the 2021 and 2022 World Championships, respectively, but, having turned 30 last month, beset by a balky knee and four months removed from her last truly competitive event, it is questionable how much Tai has left in the tank as she gears up for her first match in Paris tomorrow.
Is age catching up to her?
Tai seems to be wondering the same thing.
“It may seem like I’ve been okay in matches, but I can feel that physically and in terms of my training, things haven’t been great,” Tai said in an interview with the Badminton World Federation (BWF) released on Tuesday last week, recognizing the challenges of staying at the top as one ages in a sport as physically demanding as badminton.
“I think that if I wasn’t able to win the gold medal in Tokyo, to win this time — I’m not saying I have no chance in Paris, but it will definitely be tougher than before,” she told the BWF.
She appeared to have gained new life at the end of last year, reaching the finals of last year’s BWF World Tour Finals and then the Malaysia Open and India Open in January.
That resurgence was referred to as Tai’s “second coming” by the BWF’s Web site, which said that the last time she had reached three or more finals in a row dated back to 2021.
However, even then her body was letting her down, as it did when she reached the semi-finals of the All England Open in mid- March. She later dropped out of the BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in May and withdrew from the Indonesia Open last month.
In the event that Tai is relatively healthy in Paris, she still has to overcome a tough draw.
She faces Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon in the group stage, an opponent who has given her fits, including in Tokyo in 2021 when she almost ousted Tai in the quarter-finals.
If Tai survives the group stage, in which she would also have to defeat Lianne Tan of Belgium, she would likely face the dangerous Gregoria Mariska Tunjung of Indonesia in the quarter-finals and then world No. 1 An Se-young of South Korea in the semi-finals.
“Nothing is impossible, but I think it will be very difficult,” Tai said.
As challenging a road as she faces, what is certain is that Tai is happy to be competing in Paris.
“The Olympics is an event that every athlete wants to be part of. I feel that it’s not easy for me to participate for a fourth time,” she said.
Her four Olympics would be the most any Taiwanese badminton athlete has played in.
“I have no idea if there will be any unexpected situations, but I will try my best for sure,” she said.
If Tai is to call it a career at the end of this year, it would definitely mark the end of an era not just in badminton, but in Taiwanese sports.
No other Taiwanese athlete has matched her popularity since Tai first ascended to the top in 2016, and it is not even close.
As of Tuesday last week, Tai had 1.3 million followers on Instagram and 1.4 million on her Facebook page. The active athlete with the next-biggest social media presence is judoka Yang Yung-wei, whose Instagram account has 349,000 followers.
That popularity has since translated to multiple endorsement deals involving diverse brands and industries, such as fast food, airlines, food delivery services and physical fitness equipment.
Tai is estimated to earn at least NT$25 million (US$761,475) a year from advertisement deals, according to a report by Era News in July 2021.
Some of her strong following might be due to her support for a country that has been continuously silenced in the world.
That was on display in 2017, when she chose to participate in the 29th Summer Universiade held in Taipei instead of the BWF World Championships, of which schedules overlapped.
“I want to let Taiwan be seen on the international stage. I think showing Taiwan to the world is a very beautiful thing,” she said at the time. “I gave up the World Championships and chose the Universiade because I think it’s one of the few chances that Taiwan holds a sports event on this scale. I feel I had to stay here to support this event with other athletes, hopefully keeping golds in Taiwan.”
On Tai’s left forearm is her third tattoo, her father’s motto, “trust in yourself” (相信自己), written in Mandarin, accompanied by a snake design, representing her father’s Chinese zodiac sign.
“This [phrase] has accompanied me since childhood... I hope it will empower me whenever I raise my left arm for a shot in a match,” she wrote in an Instagram post.
That phrase summarizes how Tai has tried to fight her way back to the Paris Olympics by outdoing herself, especially by managing her errors on the court.
Her major rivals, including An and Carolina Marin of Spain, often scout their opponents by watching videos of their performances, but Tai said she is not a fan of it and prefers to just “focus on reducing my errors.”
“When I lose, I know the aspects I didn’t do well in. So if I watch a past video, all I can learn is that I need to bring down my errors. Knowing this will not help my game because it’s still up to myself,” Tai was quoted as saying in a BWF report.
Can the former world No. 1 still find something inside her that would allow her to reach new heights in Paris?
“It all depends on me,” she said.
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