The dazzling doubles genius of Hsieh Su-Wei: “She’s amazingly creative”

Usually how goes it in professional doubles is that the better team wins in a reasonably linear way. While classic serve-and-volley doubles is far less common in contemporary tennis, straightforward execution remains prevalent, be it with the everlasting presence of the crunching volley and, in recent decades, the ascent of exceptionally powerful groundstrokes.

Then there’s Hsieh Su-Wei.

“I like to use the freedom on court,” Hsieh said after she and Barbora Strycova won Wimbledon in 2023. “I'm, like, freestyle player. I set my plan very clear, clean. I do it. I enjoy. All the different plan, I try to work out plan to where I go, where they go. Really works well.”

Were the doubles court a restaurant, you’d say that most successful doubles players serve up meat-and-potatoes: clear and patterned strategy and execution. But how best to describe the eclectic and spicy array of offerings Hsieh brings every time she steps on to a tennis court? A single Hsieh point might include everything from a half-volley lob to a slice forehand and a blistering backhand. Or, since Hsieh hits with two hands off both sides, was that a blistering forehand?

Once she’s thoroughly in control of the rally, Hsieh closes out the point with a slow winner hit behind her opponent. Is all of that a psychedelic supper? Perhaps with Hsieh, it’s best to ditch the culinary comparisons and instead draw on the opening lines from a classic TV show:

“You're traveling through another dimension—a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's a signpost up ahead. Your next stop: the Twilight Zone!”

“She hits very different from everyone else,” said Naomi Osaka after earning a difficult three-set victory over her at the 2019 Australian Open. “I can never really tell where she's going to put the ball. She hits down the line and then hits a weird crosscourt. It's very, very hard to have a rally with her.”

In singles, Hsieh has been ranked as high as 23^rd in the world, her results in that discipline likely hindered by an exceptionally weak serve.

In doubles, though, Hsieh has shined far more brightly. Ranked No. 1 back in 2014, she’s currently No. 6, with 35 WTA Tour titles, including seven majors (four at Wimbledon, two at Roland Garros, one at the Australian Open). This year, at age 38, Hsieh added a pair of mixed doubles majors, partnering with Jan Zielinski to go the distance at the Australian Open and Wimbledon.

“She’s amazingly creative,” said one of the greatest doubles players in tennis history, Gigi Fernandez. “It’s remarkable how good she is at taking pace off the ball and redirecting it.”

According to Kevin O’Neill, a veteran coach who’s worked with Caty McNally and many other pros, “She sees the court better than everybody else. She’s very calm and cool and doesn’t overreact to what’s happening in the middle of the rally. And she knows how to wait before she hits the ball. She gets there with her feet, and then she waits. So she has plenty of options.”

In the history of tennis stylists, Hsieh fits into a longstanding but small, cult-like cohort that includes such greats as John Bromwich, Art Larsen, Manuel Santana, Francoise Durr, John McEnroe, Gene Mayer, Fabrice Santoro, Martina Hingis, and Natasha Zvereva. Starting with a wide range of speeds and spins, to an ability to dispense the ball into awkward pockets of the court, to a seemingly random set of decisions, everything these jugglers does poses one complicated question after another.

“Hsieh never gets predictable, and that’s very hard to cover,” said Fernandez, a 17-time Grand Slam champion.

Typically, the better player pounds your body into submission. These players erode your brain, one delicate strand at a time.

Mayer, who won back-to-back Roland Garros doubles titles with two different partners, also hits with two hands off both sides like Hsieh, and greatly commends her ability to create what he calls “geometric opportunities.”

According to Mayer, “She doesn’t appear athletic in the conventional way, but she has this incredible repertoire and is able to take time away from opponents by hitting the ball early . . . She uses the court and the angles and all the shots tremendously well.”

Hsieh’s brilliant doubles play has earned her a large fan following. At one level, she is transcendent, a skilled, seasoned and brilliant visionary doing things with the ball no one dares imagine. At another, she is a comprehensive, world-class version of that recreational player often tagged with such backhanded compliments as “crafty” and “tricky” because they strike shots mildly denigrated as “spinny,” “floaty” or “squirrely.”

(It is interesting to note that all these words end with the letter “y.” Maybe that’s because people who hit those shots often ask this question with their racquets: “Why not?”)

Frequently, when players such as Hsieh emerge, instructors and coaches will say that her skills cannot be taught, that the gods graced her wth a genetic gift, as surely as they bestowed power to some and footspeed to others. Perhaps that is true and it might well be the case that the likes of Hsieh, Mayer, McEnroe and others were given a ten or even 20-yard head start on this kind of creativity.

But might that also be a way for the entire tennis teaching profession to exonerate itself? Where is the drill that encourages students to attempt the Hsieh array—one lob, one drive, followed by a swing volley?

“Of course, this can all be learned,” said O’Neill.

“Imagination,” said The Twilight Zone’s creator, Rod Serling. “Its limits are only those of the mind itself.”