A tennis player from Auckland, Tina Li arrived at BYU in the autumn of 2022 and earned All-WCC Doubles honours in her freshman season. She went on to compete in the Big 12 as BYU made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in seventeen years, before transferring to Florida State University for the 2025-26 season with 26 singles wins and 23 doubles wins to her name.
Tina Li's college tennis career is not a straight line. It is not supposed to be.
She grew up in Auckland, developed her game through a junior pathway that took her to Taiwan before the United States, and arrived at Brigham Young University in the autumn of 2022 as one of the more internationally experienced recruits on the squad. What followed over three years at BYU was a career that demonstrated both consistent individual performance and the kind of adaptability that the college pathway, at its best, demands and develops simultaneously.
The story is still being written. In 2025-26, Tina is competing for Florida State University in Tallahassee, bringing a career record of 26 singles wins and 23 doubles wins from her time at BYU to one of the most competitive programmes in the ACC. That transfer, and what it reflects about her development as an athlete, is part of what makes her pathway worth understanding.
Tina has been playing tennis since the age of eight, developing her game first in New Zealand and then through competitive experience in Taiwan before heading to the United States. That international background is not incidental to her story. It is central to it.
Athletes who have competed across different countries and different competitive cultures before arriving at a U.S. college programme tend to adapt more quickly than those arriving from a single environment. They have already experienced the discomfort of unfamiliar surroundings, different playing conditions, and the pressure of performing without the home advantage. Tina had done all of that before she ever set foot in Provo.
Her junior record earned the attention of multiple college coaching staffs, and after interviewing with several programmes she felt a clear connection with head coach Cathy Hasler and the BYU team. That connection, based on the coaching relationship and the programme's commitment to developing athletes as people as well as players, was what made BYU the right choice.
Tina arrived at BYU for the 2022-23 season and performed from the outset. Playing primarily at No. 2 singles, she built double-digit victories in both singles and doubles across her freshman year, at one point reaching a 12-2 singles record and riding an eight-match winning streak through the heart of the WCC season. She finished ranked No. 9 in the ITA Mountain Region singles rankings and fourth on the team in doubles victories.
At the end of the season she was named to the All-WCC Doubles team, one of the more significant individual honours available to a freshman in her first year of college tennis. She also earned CSC Academic All-District recognition, reflecting the standard she set in the classroom from the beginning.
For a player competing in her first year away from home in an unfamiliar competitive environment, that combination of athletic and academic achievement in the same season is exactly the kind of start that sets the foundation for everything that follows.
Tina's sophomore season in 2023-24 brought a significant shift in context. BYU left the West Coast Conference and joined the Big 12, one of the most competitive conferences in American collegiate tennis, and the programme responded with its best season in nearly two decades.
The Cougars finished 17-8 overall, went 8-5 in Big 12 play, and made the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2007. Tina contributed throughout, mainly playing No. 2 doubles and earning CSC Academic All-District honours for the second consecutive year. The team's success against nationally ranked opponents, including victories over Baylor and TCU in the Big 12 Championship, gave every player in the squad experience of performing at a level that stretches well beyond conference competition.
That kind of season, being part of a squad that is genuinely tested at the highest level, is one of the things that separates certain college environments from others. Players who compete in those conditions consistently improve in ways that individual training cannot replicate.
In 2025-26, Tina is competing for Florida State University in the ACC, one of the most demanding conferences in college tennis. The transfer reflects a player who has developed significantly through three years at BYU and is seeking an environment that challenges her further as she enters the final stage of her college career.
Across her time at BYU she accumulated 26 singles wins and 23 doubles wins, earned All-WCC Doubles honours, two Academic All-District selections, and a career-high ITF world ranking of 992, placing her among the world's ranked players. The decision to transfer to FSU, a programme competing at the very highest level of college tennis, is a natural progression for an athlete who has consistently pushed herself toward more demanding environments.
That is the shape of a well-managed college career. Not a single four-year chapter in one place, but a developing athlete making informed decisions about where the next level of challenge and development can be found.
The college pathway is not always a single institution for four years. For many athletes, especially those who develop quickly and find their ambitions outpacing their original environment, the transfer portal offers a legitimate and increasingly common route to a better fit at the right moment in their career.
What Tina's pathway illustrates is that arriving at the right first programme matters, competing seriously and academically from day one matters, and building the kind of record that makes the next opportunity available also matters. She did all three at BYU, and Florida State is the result.
For families thinking about the college tennis pathway, and wondering whether the first commitment has to be permanent, Tina Li's career across three years and two programmes is a useful answer.
If you are a student-athlete or parent trying to understand the U.S. college pathway, start with a conversation. Platform Sports can help you understand your options, your timeline, and what the right fit could look like.
