Wheelchair tennis great Vergeer enshrined in HOF

NEWPORT, R.I. — Esther Vergeer put up eye-popping numbers throughout her profession in wheelchair tennis, piling them up as the game grew and have become a Grand Slam occasion.

Now, her accomplishments will likely be on show without end after she was inducted into the Worldwide Tennis Corridor of Fame on Saturday throughout a 45-minute ceremony on grass courts simply exterior the museum.

“Tennis reworked me into the very essence of who I’m in the present day,” stated Vergeer, who suffered from a collection of strokes as a baby, and an operation to handle an abnormality in her spinal wire blood provide left her legs paralyzed.

“A testomony to the ability of perseverance, resilience and willpower,” she instructed the gang. “This second just isn’t mine alone. It displays the limitless assist and dedication and love that has surrounded me all through my tennis profession.”

A 21-time Grand Slam singles champion and seven-time Paralympic gold medalist, Vergeer held the No. 1 spot on the earth rankings for 668 weeks from 2000-13 and received 470 straight singles matches. She received 96% of her singles matches total, and in addition claimed 136 doubles titles.

The 42-year-old Vergeer, from the Netherlands, was inducted together with American Rick Draney, 61, who received 12 singles titles and 6 in doubles earlier than the Slam period of wheelchair tennis and is a pioneer in bringing quad tennis to the game.

When her profession was over, did she ever sit again, pause and assume: ‘Did I do all that?’

“Yeah, there have been some moments,” she stated, breaking into a short chuckle earlier than smiling after being requested the query at a day information convention.

“Now, once more, when individuals repeat these numbers, I am like whoa. All of it occurred so quick that whenever you’re enjoying you do not understand what the quantity are,” she stated. “To look again on my profession and see what I did, yeah, it is fairly spectacular, particularly whenever you see you are unbeaten and to have the ability to win each time.”

However it could take little longer for Vergeer to comprehend her place within the sport’s historical past in Newport due to all the eye this weekend.

“I am so busy right here,” she stated. “Once I get again on the aircraft going house, that is once I’ll most likely understand how massive that is. Not just for me, however for tennis as a complete.”

Draney has been credited with bringing quad tennis — a classification that accounts for impairment within the arms, as effectively — to the Paralympics and different prime tournaments.

“I am nonetheless a part of that course of and it’s taking place, in some half, due to my efforts,” he stated. “I take immense satisfaction in that and satisfaction to know we’re the place we are actually.”