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Who? Is probably your first reaction. Not surprising given that even the biggest tennis fan has never heard of Vergeer. She is a Dutch tennis player who has not lost a match since 2003. As of July this year, Vergeer has won 418 consecutive matches and 107 titles in the last 8 years (current streak is at 429). Makes Djokovic's 43 match win streak and Sampras' 64 career titles seem pretty insignificant. Oh, and did I mention that Vergeer is a wheelchair athlete.


Vergeer. Photo from NEC Wheelchair Tennis Masters.

I have been meaning to write a post about Vergeer for weeks but the Huffington Post beat me to it. If you have time I would suggest reading the full article here: Who is the most dominant player in professional sports today? But the highlight reel version goes like this:

Vergeer is 30 years old and started playing tennis at the age of 12. At a young age she underwent spinal surgery, which fixed her spinal defect but left her paralyzed. Due to the fact that the Dutch government seems to be on point with making physical activity accessible every person in a wheelchair is "provided a sports wheelchair as part of their rehabilitation" (Klein, 2011).

Wheelchair tennis is played with the same rules, equipment and courts as able-bodied tennis with the exception that wheelchair athletes are allowed two bounces (but hardly ever use them). Assuming that wheelchair players are a lesser version of able-bodied athletes would be mistake #1. Some of the better wheelchair players can hit kick serves that will bounce over the head of an able-bodied player. I challenge even Patrick Rafter to master the kick serve from a seated position.

Photo from Roland Garros 2011.

Anyways, the point of this post is not to bring attention to Esther Vergeer, but to highlight the erasure of disability sports and athletes as whole. Here is a woman who has dominated her sport for almost a decade, is a two-time Laureus Sports Award winner and, not to mention, has posed nude in ESPN magazine; yet I have never once heard her name mentioned on Sportscentre. Usually, only one of those accolades is needed to make headlines but not for Vergeer. How many other great athletes have we never heard of because they are not the normalized athlete that we have come to revere? The world of sports loves the athletes that has a 'story' and rises above challenges to achieve greatness; after all, it is these stories that perpetuate the myth that anyone can make it. Esther Vergeer, one would think, should be the poster-child for meritocracy and determination; but instead she has become a footnote in the story of professional sports. Is it because she is in a wheelchair? Is it because she is a woman? Is it because she is a woman in a wheelchair? I'm not sure what it is about Vergeer or her representation that is 'unpalatable' for general sports consumption; but I am certain that as far as the word champion goes, by now, it should be synonymous with Esther Vergeer.

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