Yu/Jin were paired together by their coaches in 2009.[2] They did on- and off-ice training from eight in the morning to five in the afternoon with a break in the middle.[2]
In the 2014-15 season, Yu/Jin made their official senior debut on the Grand Prix circuit. They won a silver medal at the 2014 Cup of China and a bronze medal at the 2014 NHK Trophy, qualifying them for their first senior Grand Prix Final in Barcelona, Spain. At the Grand Prix Final they set new personal bests in both the short program and free skate to finish in 5th place. They then went on to win their second national title. With the surprise comeback of Pang/Tong, Yu/Jin were not given a spot to compete at the Four Continents Championships in Seoul and the World Championships in Shanghai, China. Instead, they were sent to the 2015 Winter Universiade where they won the gold medal. It was later announced that they would compete at the 2015 World Junior Figure Skating Championships in Tallinn, Estonia. Despite training senior program layouts for much of the season, they managed to successfully defend their Junior World title, winning both segments of the competition.
2015–16 season
Yu/Jin were assigned to Cup of China and NHK Trophy. They attempted their first throw quadruple salchow in competition at Cup of China and won a bronze medal. They then went on to win silver at 2015 NHK Trophy which helped qualify them for the 2015–16 Grand Prix Final in Barcelona. At the Final they placed 5th.[3]
Yu/Zhang began their season at the 2017 Cup of Nice where they placed first.[7] In their first Grand Prix event of the season, Yu/Zhang placed second at the 2017 Cup of China after ranking second in both the short program and free skate.[8] In their second Grand Prix event at 2017 Skate America, Yu/Zhang again placed second after ranking second in both programs.[9] Their scores in both Grand Prix events have qualified Yu/Zhang for the 2017-18 Grand Prix Final,[10] where they placed sixth. They won the Chinese National Championship and were named to the Chinese Olympic and World teams. They placed eighth at the Olympics, and seventh at Worlds.
2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons
Due to injury, they withdrew from both of their 2018-19 Grand Prix events and did not compete at Nationals. They did not compete again until the 2019-20 Nationals, where they placed fourth.
Partner Change and Retirement
2020-21 season
In September of 2020, it was reported that Yu and Zhang had split, and that Yu was now paired with Wang Lei.[11] Zhang would announce his retirement later in the season.
In February 2011, a group of Chinese skaters' ages became the subject of controversy as their birth dates published on the Chinese Skating Association's website did not match the ones listed on their bio pages in the ISU website.[13] The controversy prompted a search for more discrepancies among Chinese figure skaters' dates of births. According to news articles published in February 2011, although Yu's birthday was listed as 2 January, 1996 on ISU's website, the Chinese website suggested that she was born on that day in 1998. Her then partner Jin Yang did not seem to have a controversy. Officials from the State General Administration of Sports held a press conference where they attributed the discrepancies to erroneous information provided by the Chinese website.[14][15][16][17]
^Sun, Haiguang (September 21, 2020). "前几日去九华山庄采访，发现于小雨新搭档变成了王磊。" [A few days ago, I went to Jiuhua Mountain Villa for an interview and found that Yu Xiaoyu's new partner had become Wang Lei.] (Weibo) (in Chinese).
