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In doubles Vergeer has also been just as successfull winning 18 Slam titles, with 8 year end championships. Vergeer has also been part of the winning team 13 times in the World Team Cup. Vergeer is currently unbeaten in 404 singles matches which streaches back to since January 2003, she may be the most dominant player in any professional sport. Outside of tennis Vergeer was part of the Ruropean 1996 Women's Wheelchair Basketball winning team. Vergeer is also the tournament director at the ABN AMRO Wheelchair Tennis Tournament. Vergeer developed paraplegia when she was 8 years old due to an otherwise successful, very risky surgery concerning hemorrhaging blood vessels around her spinal cord. During rehabilitation she learned to play volleyball, basketball, and tennis in a wheelchair. After playing basketball for several years at club level, she was invited to join the national wheelchair basketball team. She played with the Dutch team that won the European championship in 1997. 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. At international tournaments and as of 29 January 2011, Vergeer has won 146 singles and 126 doubles titles. Her overall record is 613 wins and 25 losses in singles, and 405 wins and 31 losses in doubles. Since 31 March 2001 she 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. Vergeer is currently on a 404-match winning streak. She has been nominated five times for the Laureus Award for Sportsperson with a Disability of the Year, winning it twice in 2002 and 2008. In October 2010 she posed naked for ESPN The Magazine's annual Body Issue, marking the first time the magazine has featured a disabled athlete in the Body Issue. In December 2010 Esther Vergeer was featured on CNN for her tennis record of 401 straight wins receiving congratulations from both Roger Federer and Kim Clijsters. After one year not playing the Australian Open in 2011 she won both titles, the single and double titles. |