I never did get super practiced with her but I when she came out I felt like the conversations around her were suggesting people weren't going about her the right way by default.
Without having any specifics about where someone is at, I'd say you need to focus on a number of things to get traction with her:
Be ready to Zone
Wave dashing
Jailing
what is punishable with 9f
Zone: Don't treat her like a yolo or rushdown character. Her Sais are some of the best projectiles in the game. Normal Sai is hard to jump over, and they double hit eating through stuff that might offer single hit protection. Don't let people near you, weaken them as much as you can before engaging close up.
Wave Dash: She can move around way more freely than just about any other character. Wave dash like crazy to stay in good ranges. At least work on backdashing so you can try and zone when it won't land you in the corner. Use it to say out of her bad ranges instead of wiffing attacks and getting frustrated by her reach.
Jail: Don't just try and b11 then complain she has no range. D3 to jail into f1, and D3 to get frames to do f4 is your range. It's not as simple or a straight forward as say Raiden's options. If you aren't at the tip of her d3 or right on top of them, then you probably don't want to be there. Get in or get out, but don't stay there. Probably get just out and throw sais.
9f Punish: f1 is a decent, quick, advancing move. You can poke with it every now and then if you aren't being obvious enough to get d2'ed for abusing it. But a better use of it is to use its speed and range for a punish. If something is 9f punishable, then it will probably reach. f1 into ball roll will get you a full combo with meter. That requires you to know what those punishes are, which is something of an investment not everyone is up for. Don't build a habit of f1 into ball roll into pray it hits. That will get you obliterated. You have to know what those punishes are because you don't have time to hit confirm the f1.