Late on Friday night, former world No. 1 female badminton player Tai Tzu-ying (戴資穎) officially announced her retirement on social media, drawing to a close a professional career that has spanned more than half of her life.
The decision was expected, as Tai had said last year’s season would be her last and she has not competed in a tournament since losing to Denmark’s Julie Jakobsen at the China Open in September last year.
She applied for a three-month ranking protection the following month, but did not extend it. Her world ranking fell from No. 5 to unranked by September this year.
Photo: Reuters
The badminton player’s plain farewell was a surprise for many, as it was a stark contrast to her brilliant career.
Tai, 31, in 2014 became the first Taiwanese to win the Badminton World Federation (BWF) Super Series Finals. She went on to dominate the women’s singles rankings for a record 214 weeks between December 2016 and September 2022.
British badminton commentator Gillian Clark once compared Tai’s stature in badminton to that of Michael Jordan in basketball, Tiger Woods in golf and Muhammad Ali in boxing, describing her as “the best women’s singles player I’ve ever had the privilege to watch.”
Photo: Reuters
Tai said she chose to bid farewell this way, because “I don’t want you to see me in such weak form, so I couldn’t give you a perfect retirement ceremony.”
This sense of imperfection, as Tai called it, in a way reflected her career: Dominant as she was, she never captured a gold medal in the four Olympic Games or eight World Championships she joined.
She won her only Olympic medal — a silver in Tokyo in 2020 — and finished runner-up and third at the 2021 and 2022 World Championships respectively.
When a reporter asked Tai about her lack of titles on the biggest stages, she said: “What else do I need to prove?” — and few could argue otherwise.
Over the past decade, Tai has cemented her status as Taiwan’s most iconic athlete.
As of yesterday, she had 1.5 million followers on Instagram and 1.4 million on Facebook.
The Taiwanese athlete with the next-largest social media following is Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions outfielder Chen Chieh-hsien (陳傑憲), who captained Taiwan to last year’s Premier12 championship, the nation’s first major baseball title. He has 409,000 followers.
Tai has displayed her greatness in ways that transcend the court and national boundaries.
When she was world No. 1 in 2017, Tai chose to compete in the Summer Universiade in Taipei rather than the BWF World Championships, which were held at the same time.
“I gave up the World Championships and chose the Universiade, because it’s one of the few chances for Taiwan to host an event of this scale. I felt I had to stay here and support this event with other athletes, hopefully keeping golds in Taiwan,” she said in an official Universiade video. “I want to let Taiwan be seen on the international stage. I think showing Taiwan to the world is a very beautiful thing.”
Tai also weaved her matches with top international players — including China’s Chen Yufei (陳雨菲), South Korea’s An Se-young, Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi, Pusarla Sindhu of India and Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand — into some of the badminton’s most memorable chapters, all while nurturing friendships that endured beyond competitions.
Chen, who beat Tai in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics final, said she was surprised when she received a message from Tai expressing concern and respect for her decision when Chen announced she would take a break from competition.
“If there is one person who made me the Chen Yufei I am today, it must be Tai Tzu-ying,” she said.
Sindhu wrote an emotional note on Instagram after Tai’s announcement, saying that their “quiet friendship” over the years went “beyond rivalry.”
“Watching you step away feels like losing a piece of my own journey. The sport will miss your magic, and so will I. It’s starting to hit me that my generation of players [is] slowly beginning to step away, and nothing really prepares you for that,” Sindhu wrote.
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