5 Reasons Why Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong Are So Good
There’s no doubt that Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong are the best mixed doubles pair in the world – they are Olympic champions, were world number 1 for over 4 years and have won every major title in badminton. In 2022, they were unbeaten for 7 tournaments in a row, with a 35 match winning streak!
We’ve spent many hours watching and analysing their game and noticed five main areas that make them unbeatable:
1) Their shot placement
2) Their ability to read the game
3) Their dominance on serving
4) Their return of serves
5) Their incredible speed
The good news is that you can also adopt these which could help make you unbeatable too, so let’s get straight into it!
1) Shot Placement
Zheng Siwei certainly does have a powerful smash, but it’s not actually that powerful compared to some other players. Despite this, he is still hitting an average of 40% more smash winners than his male opponents!
This is because of the placement of these smashes.
For example, he often targets his smashes into the right hip of right-handed opponents or the left hip of left-handed opponents. This is one of the hardest places to defend from because it’s such an awkward area, and you don’t know whether to take a backhand or a forehand.
We would definitely suggest aiming for this area in a lot of your smashes!
We recommend starting by hitting at around 75% of your power but ensuring you have the same technique. Then you can build it up over time to get to a stage where you can hit with 100% power and perfect placement like Siwei!
2) Reading The Game
You might watch some players and wonder how they are always in the right place at the right time. This is most likely because they’re reading the game well and is something that Huang Yaqiong is especially good at around the net area.
She is always making small calculated movements depending on what shot Siwei is playing and what her opponents are doing. Then, as soon as she sees a chance, she moves to where she thinks the shuttle is going before her opponent has even hit it!
Of course, there will be times where she moves the wrong way, but the beauty of having a partner like Siwei is that he’s usually covering the other side. This is only because she’s made a clear and obvious move which has sent the signal to Siwei to cover these shots.
Unfortunately, we can’t all have a partner like Siwei, but learning to read the game better is a skill that everyone can improve! If you’re interested, we go into much more detail about how to read the game in badminton here!
Another reason why Siwei and Yaqiong always look like they’re in the right place is because they don’t always go for a winning shot straight away. If they’re not in a great position, they will avoid the risk of making a mistake by continually applying pressure and waiting until they’re in a really good position to win the rally.
So as well as trying to read the game better, you need to build the rally until you get a really good chance to hit a winner.
It’s very easy to get excited if you have a small chance of finishing the rally and try to play a winner, but this is often the wrong shot choice because you’re more likely to make a mistake!
3) Serving
This is one of the most important areas of mixed doubles and is where Siwei and Yaqiong really dominate! The runs of points they get when they’re serving are just crazy.
One example was in the quarterfinals of the 2022 World Championships where they were 9-8 down and then won 21-9! And what’s even crazier is that in 10 out of these 13 points, the rally length was less than five shots, showing how dominant they were at the start of each rally.
So, how are they able to do this?
Here are 3 reasons:
Their amazing serve quality – the best serve in the world is when the shuttle almost dips down as soon as it goes over the net, forcing their opponent to play the return in an upwards direction, and this is something Siwei and Yaqiong do extremely well!
Their consistency – they don’t vary their serve placement too much (hitting to the T or body in over 85% of their serves), but our research found that they made 65% less mistakes on their serves than their opponents, which is pretty impressive. When they do choose to vary their serve, they both have very good flick serves and drive serves, and because their opponents know this, they always have to be on their toes as they know that they can play them at any moment!
The threat their opponents feel after the serve – we’re sure you’ve all played opponents who are better than you where you feel like you have to hit the perfect shot every time. For Siwei and Yaqiong’s opponents, they probably feel that if they don’t hit a perfect return, then it will definitely be punished. This often makes their opponents make more mistakes – we’re speaking from personal experience here, we were 19-13 up against them and lost the game because of the quality of their serve and the threat they possessed after this!
4) Return Of Serves
It’s not only their serving which is consistent, but it’s their return of serves too! Unlike some top pairs, they very rarely hit winning shots on their return of serves, but a positive coming from this is that they very rarely make any mistakes!
Of course, if you do play a bad serve, they’ll be the first to punish you, but in general, they use their returns to tempt people into playing to their strengths. For example, Siwei’s most common return is down the middle, either soft or hard, to try and tempt the opposition to hit directly up to him. And Yaqiong’s most common return is a soft net shot to engage the female opponent at the net, an area where she’s one of the best in the world at!
They are able to do this because:
- They are fast out of the blocks, enabling them to take the return early and play it in a flat or downwards direction
- They refuse to lift! Unlike a lot of us, they manage to stay calm and play pushes into space on the court or net shots away from their opponents
💡 One simple practice you can do is to play a match without lifting in the first four shots. You'll be amazed at how many times you just default to lifting, whether that's on the return or the third or fourth shot!
5) Speed
This is especially true for Siwei… you could say he’s the Usain Bolt of badminton! Siwei’s speed enables him to place shots that might get him into trouble, but because he’s so fast, it often doesn’t matter as he is still able to get to the next shot!
Trying to improve your own speed around the court will not only help you to get more shots back but also help you to be earlier on the shuttle and give you more chances to win the point.
When we watched our game against Siwei & Yaqiong, we remember he jumped from his forehand mid-court to his round-the-head corner in pretty much one movement!
To learn more about improving your speed in badminton, click here! (ON WP BUT NOT PUBLISHED YET)
One way to help improve your on-court speed is to do badminton-specific weight training that focuses on developing your speed and explosive power. Check out our Programmes below:
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There are of course many other reasons why Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong are so good, but we think these are the ones that stand out the most. And hopefully you’ve learnt how you apply these same principles into your game too!
If you enjoyed this style of article where we analyse a top player, you might like to check out our article on ‘Why Viktor Axelsen Is The Best Badminton Player In The World’ here.
Or check out our full YouTube video below to watch some clips of Siwei and Yaqiong in action showcasing their incredible skills!
In November 2024, we also had the amazing opportunity to go and train with Zheng Siwei & Huang Yaqiong in China for 1 week. We of course made a YouTube video sharing some of our time there, so we’ll include that video here too!