| Name |
Esther Vergeer |
| Height |
|
| Naionality |
Dutch |
| Date of Birth |
18-July-1981 |
| Place of Birth |
Woerden, The Netherlands |
| Famous for |
Wheelchair Tennis Player |
Esther Vergeer is a Dutch wheelchair tennis player. Combining singles and doubles, she has won 42 Grand Slams, 22 year-end championships and 7 Paralympics titles. Vergeer has been the world number one wheelchair tennis player since 1999. In singles, she has not been beaten since January 2003 and is on a winning streak of 470 matches.
She is often mentioned as the most dominant player in professional sports. Vergeer had started playing tennis in parallel with basketball, playing her first international tournament in 1996, and switched to full-time tennis in 1998. Coached by Marc Kalkman, her first big win was at the US Open championships in 1998, moving her from 15th to 2nd in the world ranking. She beat top seed Daniela Di Toro to win the singles title and partnered with Sonja Peters to capture the doubles. Her success led to a photo in the 26 November 1998 TennisWeek issue she continued on and during the 2000 Summer Paralympics in Sydney she did not lose a set to win the gold medal in singles and also won the doubles title with Maaike Smit as her partner. She also won the Wheelchair Tennis masters in 1998. As of 8 August 2012, Vergeer has won 162 singles and 134 doubles titles at international tournaments. Her overall record is 687 wins and 25 losses in singles, and 440 wins and 35 losses in doubles. In singles, she has won 21 Grand Slam, 13 year-end championships, and 3 Paralympic titles while in doubles she has shared 21 Grand Slam, 9 year-end, and 2 Paralympic titles. She has also been part of the Dutch team that has won 14 World Team Cups.
Since 31 March 2001 Vergeer has lost only one singles match (on 30 Jan 2003 at the Sydney International to Daniela Di Toro from Australia). Between August 2004 and October 2006 she even won 250 consecutive sets, only one of which ended with a tiebreaker. As of 8 September 2012, when she won the Paralympic gold medal, Vergeer is on a 470-match winning streak.
