Taiwan: It was warm welcome home on Monday for Taiwanese badminton player Tai Tzu-ying who won women’s singles title in the prestigious Badminton World Federation’s World Superseries Finals last Sunday.
Upon her return at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, she said she didn’t think too much when playing her matches and felt fortunate to even be in the tournament because she did not qualify for it until late in the year.
When asked how she felt to be the first Taiwanese women’s singles player to win the Badminton World Federation’s World Superseries Finals, she said, “It’s all right. I have no special feelings.”
Tai, who earned US$80,000 for winning the title and is now ranked No. 9 in the world, got into the sport while in the third grade under the encouragement of her father, Tai Nan-kai, a firefighter and the secretary-general of the Kaohsiung City Badminton Committee. She said her game took off in the ninth grade when she joined the Taiwan Cooperative Bank team. Yet it was only after she became part of the national team that she began to blossom because of her access to funding, the bane of many Taiwanese athletes.
No longer having to depend on being sponsored by her family, she said she was able to play more freely without having to worry too much about “whether I win or lose.”
In 2009, she took part in her first international tourney and placed second in the Vietnam Open GP.
She has since won the Japan Open (2012), Taipei Open (2012), Malaysia Open (2013) and Hong Kong Open (2014), but her triumph Sunday was clearly the biggest of her career to date.
Tai said she is now looking forward to next year’s matches, especially since some of them will determine qualifiers for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
She understood that her path to Rio may be more difficult after winning the Superseries Finals because her opponents will put more effort into scouting and preparing for her.
As she said Sunday after beating Sung, “I expect that my opponents will study me closely, but that’s something I cannot avoid. I will have to adjust accordingly.”
wantchinatimes