Angela's Story
Angela Yu will carry on a family tradition when she competes for Australia in badminton at the Paris Olympics.
Angela’s mother He Tian (Rosie) Tang won women’s doubles badminton bronze for Australia at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, after previously winning Olympic bronze for China at Atlanta in 1996. Her dad Yu Qi played badminton for China before coming to Australia in 1992 to coach the national team.
Angela describes her mum as her sporting hero. “I started playing badminton under the influence of my parents as they once were elite badminton athletes and loved the sport,” she said.
In both 2018 and 2019, Angela was part of the Badminton Australia Junior National Squad that played at the World Junior Championships. In 2022, Angela and Mitchell Wheeler claimed bronze in the mixed doubles at the Oceania Championships after losing their semi-final to New Zealand’s Oliver Leydon-Davis and Anona Pak.
Angela and her little brother Jack both made their Commonwealth Games debuts in Birmingham in 2022. Angela reached the round of 16 in both the women’s doubles with Kaitlyn Ea and the mixed doubles with Hoang (Tran) Pham.
In 2023, Angela teamed up with Setyana Mapasa and the pair caught the attention of the badminton world when they won three tournaments in a row.
They held their nerve in some extremely tight matches to win the prestigious Kaoshiung Masters 100 in Taiwan. They then backed that up with victories in women’s doubles at the Bendigo International and the Sydney International.
The pair, ranked 11 in the world at the time, won gold at the Oceania Championships in Geelong in February 2024 and reached the round of 16 at the All England Open.
Moving on to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Angela and Setyana started the women's doubles group stages with losses to pairs from Korea and Japan, but ended on a high with a 2-0 (21-15 21-10) win over Indian pair Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponnappa.
Read More
